Bharti Airtel has turned on its 5G trial network in Gurgaon’s Cyber Hub in the Millennium city, reports local media outlets.
The Sunil Mittal-led telco is operating in the middle band spectrum of 3500 Mhz, as per Department of Telecommunications (DoT) guidelines.
The 5G network of the second-largest telecom operator of India was able to deliver a throughput of over 1 Gbps speed, according to reports.
DoT has allocated spectrum in the 700 MHz, 3.5 GHz, and 26 GHz bands to Airtel in four Indian telecom circles including Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Delhi.
Sources also said that soon, the telco will launch another such network in Mumbai. Airtel had also become the first country to test 5G over a live network in the 1.8 GHz band.
The 5G trials by Airtel are being conducted in partnership with Swedish equipment maker Ericsson. Airtel has tied up with Apple and BBK-owned smartphone brands — OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Vivo — to test its 5G trial network.
Over the last few weeks, both the telcos have been busy beefing up their networks in many states across the country. Of course, the exercises served to lessen the burden on the network due to increased data usage.
Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio already have 5G-ready networks. The other two operators, Vodafone Idea and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) do not have plans of rolling out 5G networks any time soon, sources said.
Earlier this year, Airtel became the first telecom company in the country to test 5G over a live commercial network in Hyderabad city, underlining the company’s technology capabilities.
