Debt-ridden telecom operator Vodafone Idea (Vi) claimed to have recorded a peak speed of 3.7 gigabits per second (Gbps), the highest by any operator in India, during 5G trials in Pune (a city in the Indian state of Maharashtra) on the mmWave spectrum band.
The telecom operator also recorded peak download speeds of up to 1.5 Gbps in the 3.5 GHz band 5G trial network, in Gandhinagar and Pune city.
The company has been allocated high-frequency bands like 26 gigahertz (GHz) along with the traditional 3.5 GHz spectrum band by the government of India.
“In Pune city, Vi has deployed its 5G trial in a lab setup of an end-to-end captive network of Cloud Core, new generation Transport and Radio Access Network,” the company said in a statement, adding that “Vi has been allocated mmWave high bands like 26 GHz by the DoT, along with the traditional 3.5 GHz spectrum band, for 5G network trials.”
Vi will be competing against Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio to launch India’s first stable 5G network as soon as possible. Jio and Airtel have reportedly clocked a peak speed of 1 Gbps during the trial.
In May, the telecom department has approved the applications of Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone to conduct the trials. The permission has been granted for six-month trials with telecom gear makers Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, and C-DOT.
