Banglorians here’s something to cheer about, as Bangalore will be the first city in India to experience 4G LTE service on smartphones. India’s top telecom operator Bharti Airtel has announced its public availability of 4G LTE services on mobiles in Bangalore telecom circle at cut low 3G prices.
Airtel prepaid and postpaid customers in Bangalore can exchange their exiting SIM for a 4G USIM (Universal Subscriber Identification Module) which is a 128 KB SIM. Normal SIM supports only 2G and 3G network, but USIM Supports 2G, 3G, 4G networks as well as JAVA applications. 4G LTE service can offer high-speed mobile internet access with speeds up to 100mbps while downloading, and 40mbps while uploading, instantly download and watch HD movies with zero buffering, play multiplayer online games with low latency and lots more at a price of 3G service.
“Existing 3G plans will apply to users who will be migrated to 4G for no extra cost. However, they will have to get a SIM card replacement. Voice networks will continue to run on 2G and 3G networks.
We expect more devices will soon come enabled for this band. China has just allocated 4G spectrum in the 2300 MHz band to its operators, so there should be a lot more manufacturing of such devices.” commented Srini Gopalan, Bharti Airtel’s director for consumer business.
Thus users migrating to 4G service can opt for any 3G data plans and enjoy high-speed 4G at no extra cost.
Airtel currently uses Circuit Switched FallBack (CSFB) technology for its 4G LTE service on mobile devices. Under this technology users will be on 4G LTE network during data usage section and when they receive or make a call the network will automatically switched to 3G or 2G depending on what’s available.
Coming to the availability of mobile devices capable of supporting the 4G LTE network under band 40 along with CSFB technology to automatically switch networks are very few in India. Currently only Apple’s iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c and an Indian mobile vendor Xolo’s smartphone support this network. Apple has recently rolled out an update to its latest iPhone devices to support Airtel’s 4G band with CSFB technology.
Will you be migrating to Airtel’s 4G service? let us know your experience.