New Delhi : Telecom major Bharti Airtel is likely to shut down 3G service in next 3-4 years and refarm the spectrum linked with it for 4G services, a top official of the company said. “There is almost no spent that we are doing on 3G. Our view is in next 3-4 years we are likely to see 3G network actually shut down faster than 2G network because there are still 50 per cent of phone being shipped out in India that are feature phones,” Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India and South Asia, Bharti Airtel, said during earnings call on Wednesday.
He said that the company is investing in 4G technology to build more data capacity in the network. The company will use 2100 megahertz band, which is used for 3G services, for 4G services. “Where we have second career of 3G or third career then through flip of software you get incremental capacity on 3G. Most of that spectrum will finally go towards 4G for which we will need to have radio units,” he said.
