India’s second-largest telecom network, Airtel, successfully launched its 5G network in Hyderabad. Last day the company revealed that their 5G network test on the existing 4G spectrum of 1800MHz was a big success.
As we all know, the 5G network’s official rollout will take few more months since the 5G spectrum needs to be allocated by India’s government. Both Reliance Jio and Airtel were testing the service internally, and Jio already announced that they are expecting to launch the Jio 5G by mid of 2021.
But what Airtel achieved now is something different, they used the existing 1800MHz frequency used for the 4G network partially for 5G utilizing a technology called NSA (Non-Stand-Alone). With this technology, a portion of the 4G frequency is shared for the 5G network.
Airtel 5G in Hyderabad
Airtel 5G in Hyderabad is still under testing. The company is offering a 5G network for Airtel users in some regions of Hyderabad. Another advantage of the Airtel 5G is that users can use the existing 4G SIM card to get 5G on their smartphone.
But sure, the handset must be 5G compatible. However, once the service gets officially launched, you can use the existing 4G SIM on a 5G compatible handset without the SIM switching.
As per the report, the result of the 5G testing in Hyderabad was a big success, and users were able to download movies within a few seconds with the blazing speed of Airtel 5G.