Videocon to pump in Rs 1,200 crore for 4G rollout

NEW DELHI: Videocon Telecom is planning to invest over Rs 1,200 crore for rolling out 4G services in the circles of UP(E), UP(W) and Bihar.

The telco, which holds 5Mhz liberalized spectrum in the 1800 Mhz band in the circles, plans to utilize the entire spectrum for rollout of 4G LTE FDD services in 29 key cities across UP(E), UP(W) and Bihar circles and offer voice on overlay network in these select cities, a company statement said.

In remaining coverage area, the telco will be offering 2G voice on own network.

It would be rolling out the services in six cities in phase-1, 12 cities in phase-2 and another 11 cities on phase-3 covering the key potential cities across these circles.

The telco is working closely with Deloitte as their consulting partner and Huawei and NSN as their technology partner, who are also telco’s partners in their existing operations.

Among the other opportunities that the telco is foreseeing include ICR arrangement with other telco for 4G data.

The telco, which has recently bagged the class A pan India ISP license, plans to prioritize its ISP roll out in these circles to offer Wi-Fi off-loading for its 4G data services.

Arvind Bali, Director and CEO, Videocon Telecom, said, “ Mobile telephony is now over 20 years old now in the country, with still predominantly voice play. Having lost the momentum that we built in 2010, we re-entered the industry just two years back. The voice market is already skimmed, with the incumbents in a dominating position having acquired a sizeable base of stable, loyal and high usage subscribers.”