Bharti pilots 4G in India

Telecom Lead reports.

Entry of Reliance Industries (RIL) into the 4G sphere is still not clear. Though the company will soon start 4G trials in Jamnagar in a pilot before the project is escalated nationwide, it will miss the first mover advantage. RIL said last month that Nagpur would be a hub for its 4G operations.

RIL's business plan, according to industry sources, will focus on offering mobile broadband connectivity to every Indian in the country. The company is in the process of fine-tuning its strategies so that RIL can achieve better economies of scale as compared with other players including Airtel.

Sanjay Kapoor, the man directing this show at Bharti, puts it down to confidence that comes from being a global player, which it has been for three years now, and a founding partner of certain technologies, The Economic Times notes.

"Earlier, we would not have been confident of making an early entry in new technologies," says Kapoor, Bharti's CEO for India and South Asia. "We have greater capabilities to take the punt now."

The launch gives Bharti the first-mover advantage, as it braces for competition from RIL, which is re-entering the communications sector with plans to offer 4G services by September, Fox Business reveals.