Over the next three years, Airtel will be spending $9.04 billion on network expansion. Specifically, the network is driving mobile broadband access to villages and fixed broadband to towns across Asia and Africa.
For this initiative, Airtel is targeting 500,000 villages for connectivity with plans to double the number of base stations by adding 160,000 sites over this period.
A statement released by Airtel revealed it plans to reduce its carbon footprint by 70% over the next three years, as well as replace older base stations with smaller and more energy efficient equipment – which uses RAN (Radio Access Network) technology to manage spectrum bands. Airtel also wants to upgrade its copper broadband lines with vectoring technology – which, as the report states, will increase broadband speeds from the current 16Mbps to 50Mbps.
