NEW DELHI: Telecom operator ‘Idea’ had on Wednesday official entered the Indian 4G market by launching its high-speed 4G LTE services across all the five South Indian States. Idea is the third largest telecom operator in India, besides Airtel and Vodafone who have already started commercial 4G Services in major Indian cities.
Idea’s high speed data services are currently available in Kerala, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The telecom operator said in a statement that it intends to provide 4G services across 75 cities in South India and will soon spread its services to 750 cities across India, by June 2016.
Himanshu Kapania, managing director of Idea Cellular said “With global 4G subscriptions touching 1 billion mark, the widespread acceptance of 4G service can be noted. In view of this, we have launched Idea’s 4G LTE high-speed data service. We expect this launch to further increase our wireless broadband network and trajectory of growth rate”
Idea is also planning to roll out its 4G services in other important markets of North India like Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi and Goa by March 2016.
Idea cellular currently holds 1800 MHz 4G spectrum in 10 circles and had signed a ‘Right to use spectrum’ agreement with Videocon to use its 1800 MHz spectrum under ‘Spectrum trading agreement’ in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh (West).
In a bid to boost its 4G subscriptions, Idea has partnered with handset maker ‘Samsung’ to provide bundled free 4G usage with its Smartphones. It also looks to partner with Xolo, Lenovo and Lava in the coming days.