Bharti Airtel announced that it will make significant investments to set up 6,000 mobile sites to expand its operations and network across Assam and North East.

Airtel, the leading telecom operator in India, plans to set up 6,000 new mobile sites across the Assam and North East region in FY 2018-19. Engineers at Airtel are taking special efforts to roll out telecom sites in rural areas because of the climate challenges and hilly terrains in the region.

The Airtel strategy behind the investment is to enhance network capacity and offer wireless services in rural areas.

“This rollout will effectively translate to deployment of 16 new Airtel mobile sites per day across the region,” Raveendra Desai, CEO of Airtel North East & Assam, said.

The number of Airtel’s mobile sites across Assam and North East will go up by 31 percent to 25,000. Airtel also plans to deploy 3000 km of fresh optic fiber in the region to take its fiber footprint to 16000 km. The addition of fresh fiber capacity will support the growth of high speed data services in the region.

Airtel business managers have already done a good job as the brand has grabbed over 12.4 million customers across Assam and North East. It was the first telecom operator to launch 3G and 4G services in the region.

Airtel’s network coverage reaches even in remote locations like Lumla (Arunachal Pradesh), Tuipang (Mizoram), Dawki (Meghalaya) and Longwa (Nagaland).

In December 2017, Bharti Airtel signed an agreement with the Department of Telecom and Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) for provision of mobile services in identified uncovered villages and national highways in the North Eastern States of Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.

Airtel aims to set up over 2000 mobile towers/sites in unconnected pockets of the region and offer telecom connectivity to citizens in over 2100 villages over 18 months.