Airtel announces massive network expansion plans for UP, U'khand

Bharti Airtel said Monday it will roll out 17,313 new mobile sites and 6,650 km of additional optic fibre in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand this fiscal under an expansion project.

"As a part of its network expansion program Project LEAP, during present financial, Airtel plans to deploy more than 17,313 new mobile sites along with 6,650 km of fresh optic fibre across the two states," Bharti Airtel CEO, UP and Uttrakhand, Shailendra Singh told reporters here.

The deployment will create significant high speed data and voice capacity within the network to serve the explosive surge in mobile usage, driven by affordable smartphones and tariffs, he said.

Customers will be able to enjoy superior network coverage indoor and outdoor, he added.

With a deployed base of 43,219 sites at the end of 2017-18, this planned rollout would grow Airtels network in UP and Uttarakhand by 40 per cent to 60,532 further enhancing the speeds and voice qualities, he said.

The addition of fresh optic fibre would extend Airtel's fibre backbone in the two states to 26,800 km in the region, supporting the growth of high speed data services, Airtel said.

The massive roll-out would mean addition of more than two new sites every hour to Airtel's network in UP and Uttarakhand.

Of 17,313 new sites, 10,138 will be rolled out in UP (East) while 7,175 sites will be deployed in UP (West) and Uttarakhand, he said.

"We are glad that we are able to contribute significantly towards the governments vision of Digital India with our enhanced speeds, reach and coverage," he said.

Airtel has over 49.6 million customers across UP and Uttarakhand. Its services cover 983 towns and 1,24,515 villages across the two states.