Bharti to Launch LTE In April

India's largest operator Bharti Airtel Ltd. plans to launch the country's first Long Term Evolution Time Division Duplex (LTE TDD) network in the coming weeks.

"We will be launching LTE TDD in Kolkata this month," Bharti's CEO - India and SAARC, Sanjay Kapoor, said on the sidelines of a press conference. Earlier, there were reports that the company was to launch LTE services in March 2012. He refused to share other details of the services. (See LTE Subs to Hit 17M in Four Years.)

Once launched, Bharti Airtel will be the first operator in India to put its BWA (Broadband Wireless Access) spectrum to commercial use. The operator holds BWA licenses in four circles: Punjab, Maharashtra, Kolkata and Karnataka.

According to unconfirmed reports, the carrier is also planning to launch LTE in Pune in Maharashtra, Chandigarh in Punjab and Bangalore in Karnataka circle soon.

ZTE Corp. is the operator's vendor partner for the Kolkata circle, while Bharti had earlier awarded the Maharashtra circle deal to Nokia Siemens Networks. (See , NSN Gets Bharti's LTE Deal.)

The other winners of the BWA auction -- Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), Tikona Digital Networks Pvt. Ltd., Aircel Ltd., Augere Holdings and Qualcomm Inc. -- are yet to announce their launch plans. (See IndiaWatch: Qualcomm Gets ISP License, and RIL-Bharti: Stage Set For Round 2.)

Besides Bharti, Augere is the only other BWA license-holder to have awarded an LTE deal, having announced Ericsson AB as its vendor partner. (See Ericsson Lands India's First LTE TDD Deal.)

The industry is also waiting for the launch of services by Reliance Industries, the only company to have pan-India spectrum. The company is still in the process of conducting trials and is likely to start a pilot at Jamnagar soon. (See IndiaWatch: RIL Preps BWA Launch.)

Gagandeep Kaur, Editor, Light Reading India