 "A man walks past a shop displaying Idea Cellular Ltd's logo on its shutters in Mumbai")
Idea Cellular, third largest telecom operator, today announced it's expanding 4G network to central and north Indian states, taking total circles where it is offering 4G services to seven, up from four in December.
The Mumbai-headquartered firm today announced rolling out of 4G services in Punjab, Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh and Haryana. The company rolled out the high-speed mobile internet services in major cities of these states today, rest of the major towns of these states will be covered by end of this month.
"Idea's 4G LTE services will be available across 183 towns in these 7 telecom service areas by 31 January, 2016," the company said in a statement.
In December, it had launched 4G services in 75 south Indian towns and in four circles, out of which it was first operator of the broadband mobile internet services in 41 towns.
The flagship company from Aditya Birla group holds 1800 Mhz spectrum in 10 services areas where it intends to provide 4G services. It will launch 4G in Maharashtra and Goa, North east and Odisha by March this year. It has set a target to rollout 4G services in 750 towns by June next year.
Last year, Idea purchased airwaves from Videocon to rollout 4G services in Gujarat and Western Uttar Pradesh. After completion of the transaction, Idea will be able to provide 4G services in 12 circles, it said.
India's leading telecom operator Airtel is already providing 4G services in around 300 towns. Vodafone, the second biggest telecom player in the country has already started services in 10 towns of Kerala and in Mysore.
Reliance Jio, the only operator which holds high frequency spectrum for all 22 Indian telecom circles, is getting ready to launch pan India 4G services in April this year, after its soft launch for employees in December.
