Making a major technology leap for the telecom sector in the country, India’s top telecom operator Bharti Airtel has announced the deployment of country’s first state-of-the-art Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology. This technology also acts as the key enabler for 5G networks in the future.
In the first round, Airtel is deploying the MIMO technology in Bangalore and Kolkata. It’s part of the telecom operator’s ongoing network transformation program, Project Leap. The operator also plans to expand the deployment to other telecom circles in the near future.
What’s the advantage? With the Massive MIMO technology in place, it can increase the network capacity by more than five times, thereby making effective use of the current spectrum. As an Airtel subscriber, you can experience almost three times data speed on the existing 4G network. That’s without a device upgrade or data plan changes. 4G data speeds will be seamless, can offer enhanced user experience even indoors, in crowded places and high-rise buildings. It would enable multiple users and multiple devices to work simultaneously without facing any congestion or experience issues, especially at hotspot locations.
Diving deep into the working of Massive MIMO, it creates a 3D beam both on horizontal and vertical planes towards users, located within its coverage footprint. This essentially helps in improving network coverage and reduces interference, thereby improving signal quality. It can serve multiple users by re-using the same set of resource blocks with improved signal quality. This helps in improved user experience, cell capacity and spectrum efficiency.
Massive MIMO is pre-5G technology that will make the Airtel’s network future ready and will meet the rising data demands of its customers. The deployment uses green technology reducing carbon footprint.