Indian telco Vodafone Idea said on Thursday it is launching 5G service in Meerut in Uttar Pradesh as of today, making it the ninth city this week and the 13th city in the past month where Vi has switched on its 5G network.
Earlier this week, Vi launched 5G in Malappuram and Kozhikode in North Kerala; Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Nashik in Maharashtra; and Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat and Vadodara in Gujarat. Last week it announced 5G service launches in Sonipat in Punjab and Jaipur in Rajasthan, which followed launches earlier in July in Nagpur in Maharashtra and Mysuru in Karnataka.
The flurry of rollouts follows Vi’s announcement in June that it would launch 5G in 23 additional cities across India, following initial launches earlier this year in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bengalaru, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Patna.
Vi is offering the same introductory package in each city, priced at INR299 (around US$3.40) for unlimited 5G data.
For each launch, VI has also been touting its 4G capacity upgrades in each state to complement its 5G service. In the case of Uttar Pradesh, for example, Vi said it has deployed 900-MHz spectrum on more than 14,000 sites to strengthen indoor coverage, as well as 2100-MHz spectrum across more than 9,000 sites and 2500-MHz capacity across more than 820 sites.
Vi said this has increased its overall 4G capacity in Uttar Pradesh by 43% over the last 15 months. Vi has made similar claims on its 4G capacity gains in other states.
The 4G upgrades are essential to minimising the impact on connection speed and latency when 5G users drop down to 4G when a 5G signal isn’t available.
