It is exactly a month since Bangalore became India’s first city to get 4G for mobile.
But beyond iPhone 5S, 5C and Xolo LT900, there were no other platforms to experience 4G-LTE that promises download speeds up to 40 Mbps and upload speeds touching 20 Mbps. This could quickly change now, with more 4G-compatible smartphones entering the market.
Launched on February 14 by Airtel at the same price as 3G, the new service is slowly gaining ground. However, big numbers could materialise only after a few more months and many more compatible phones become available at affordable prices. LG has already launched its 4G LTE variant of its G2 phone on Monday, and Sony has come out with the 4G capable Xperia M2. Airtel officials declined to divulge 4G subscriber numbers, contending that it was too early.
Barring Airtel, no other mobile operator has entered the 4G market so far. This could change too, since the exponential growth in people using mobile phones to access the internet has considerably slowed 2G and 3G speeds. For its Bangalore launch, Airtel had in fact made it easy for its 3G customers to migrate to 4G. They just had to change their existing SIM to a 4G SIM without chaning their existing data plan.
Bangaloreans who did get the 4G speed in their iPhones reported a marked difference while downloading files, communicating via vide-chat, playing multi-player games or viewing HD videos online. Only data browsing is currently on the 4G network, with voice calls routed on the 2G and 3G network. In its actual avatar, before volumes begin to slow down speeds, a 4G phone should let you download 10 movies in less than 30 minutes, upload full holiday albums in less than five minutes and connect multiple devices without any experience constriants.
Airtel's fourth generation mobile broadband services are rolled out on the high-speed TD-LTE (Time Division Long-Term Evolution) network. LTE stands for "Long Term Evolution" – it is a radio access technology to deliver very high speeds.
Bangalore had got linked to the 4G non-mobile network through dongles and routers much earlier. The city, along with Pune and Chandigarh had followed Kolkata in being part of Airtel 4G network in April 2012.