Aircel appoints ZTE for 4G network deployment starting from Tamil Nadu and Chennai

Aircel has appointed China’s ZTE Corporation to supply and deploy its 4G network in India. ZTE had already partnered with Aitel to deploy 4G network in Kolkata and Chandigarh. We already reported that Aircel would start 4G LTE trial starting from Chennai by the end of 2013. Now Aircel has announced that LTE deployment will be initiated in Chennai, Rest of Tamil Nadu (RoTN) and few other business critical circles.

Regarding the new partnership, Xu Dejun, Chief Executive Officer of ZTE India, said

We are happy to partner with Aircel to roll out their 4G LTE network in India. We are fully committed to plan, design, supply and deploy state-of-the-art LTE ecosystem which will help Aircel offer unprecedented experience to their customers. In the initial phase of our rollout, we aim to offer our customers some of the highest data speeds in the country — in excess of 65 Mbps.

Anupam Vasudev, CMO, Aircel, said

We believe that data is the growth engine of the future and a cutting-edge technology such as 4G LTE has the ability to empower consumers like never before. The huge demand for Internet-enabled devices such as smartphones and tablets among the largely young population, along with increase in consumption of data on Internet and rising demand for content are some of the factors fuelling the exponential growth in data.

Aircel has 20 MHz spectrum on 2300 MHz in 8 circles including Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Assam, North-East and Jammu & Kashmir. Aircel did not announce when it plans to begin their 4G LTE roll out. Reliance Jio is also expected to roll out 4G LTE in 2014.