Airtel aims to expand operations in UP, Uttarakhand within this fiscal

Bharti Airtel said Monday it will roll out 17,313 new mobile sites and 6,650 km of additional optic fiber in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand this fiscal under an expansion project.

"As a part of its network expansion program Project LEAP, during present financial, Airtel plans to deploy more than 17,313 new mobile sites along with 6,650 km of fresh optic fiber across the two states," Bharti Airtel CEO, UP and Uttrakhand, Shailendra Singh told reporters here.

The deployment will create significant high-speed data and voice capacity within the network to serve the explosive surge in mobile usage, driven by affordable smartphones and tariffs, he said.

Customers will be able to enjoy superior network coverage indoor and outdoor, he added.

With a deployed base of 43,219 sites at the end of 2017-18, this planned rollout would grow Airtels network in UP and Uttarakhand by 40 percent to 60,532 further enhancing the speeds and voice qualities, he said.

The addition of fresh optic fiber would extend Airtel's fiber backbone in the two states to 26,800 km in the region, supporting the growth of high-speed data services, Airtel said.

The massive roll-out would mean an addition of more than two new sites every hour to Airtel's network in UP and Uttarakhand.

Of 17,313 new sites, 10,138 will be rolled out in UP (East) while 7,175 sites will be deployed in UP (West) and Uttarakhand, he said.

"We are glad that we are able to contribute significantly towards the government's vision of Digital India with our enhanced speeds, reach and coverage," he said.

Airtel has over 49.6 million customers across UP and Uttarakhand. Its services cover 983 towns and 1,24,515 villages across the two states.