As was reported few days ago, Bharti Airtel has officially launched its 4G LTE network in Kolkata. Due to very less number of 4G devices, the service is first being launched for USB dongles. Airtel also announced that they would shortly cover major cities like Pune, Chandigarh and Bangalore.
This technology would greatly impact our lives as the download speed would increase. This will also promote release of web based services. There are less than 10 percent of users with fixed line Internet. So the reach of Internet is still very limited.
Technically speaking, Airtel is not the first LTE network. Augere Wireless had released dongle based 4G internet service back in February. Chinese telecom giant ZTE is going to provide Airtel the infrastructural backing. Bharti’s main rival Reliance has not said any word about it. We can expect them to announce 4G in July or August.
While India is still getting used to 3G network, this is a leap forward. But there is still a lot to do as there are many places without even 3G. But for 4G services Airtel would have to wait a little longer till the number of devices increase.