Airtel starts testing 5G standalone network for enterprise use cases

NEW DELHI:  Bharti Airtel on Tuesday said it has started testing of 5G Standalone (SA) network as this mode may be relevant for some enterprise use cases. Gopal Vittal, managing director of Airtel, in an earnings call on Tuesday, said by March 2024 the telco expects to cover all towns in urban India as also key rural areas with 5G network.

“While these use cases (5G standalone network) are very niche today, we are already doing our trials to serve customers where needed. We are also testing our mm wave spectrum for fixed wireless access. You will hear more about our plans on FWA in the coming months,” said Vittal. 

Vittal said all of Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Realme devices support Airtel’s 5G NSA. Samsung and OnePlus will also be fully ready in the next couple of weeks, and Apple soon thereafter.  Airtel has started its 5G network in eight Indian cities on non-standalone (NSA) 5G network. For the NSA network, only radio access network (RAN) is upgraded to 5G while the SA system needs changing of the entire system. Reliance Jio is the only telco that opted for 5G SA network.

Vittal also hinted at tariff hike. He said for a business that takes risk and puts in substantial capex in order to drive digital adoption in India, this level of return on capital employed (ROCE) is very low. “The only way to help remedy this situation is a tariff correction,” he added. Meanwhile, Airtel on Monday reported an 89% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 2,145.2 crore for the second quarter of financial year 2022-23.

Its average revenue per user or ARPU rose to Rs 190 from `183.Its consolidated revenues for the quarter grew sequentially by 5.3% to reach Rs 34,527crore. Its EBITDA margins improved to 51.8%, benefited by continued cost control and spectrum usage charge (SUC) benefits that were part of the seminal telecom reforms of last year. 

Airtel’s mobile business saw a sequential revenue growth of 4% on the back of up-trading, continued feature phone to smartphone upgrades and its focus on data monetisation based on digital capabilities to get users to buy extra data on any day within the plan cycle when their allowance runs out.