Vodafone Idea 5G services to launch in India within the next six months: report

Vodafone Idea 5G plans in India

• Vodafone Idea (Vi) is currently conducting trials in Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi.
• Vi is also planning to close down its 3G services and utilise the bandwidth to improve its 4G coverage. 
• The company's Chief Executive officer, Akshaya Moondra says that Vi is looking to seek clarity on the monetisation of 5G before the official launch.

• Akshaya Moondra said (via) to investors during a third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday that the company is in talks with various technology partners to finalise its 5G rollout.
• The new technologies in question include implementing vRAN and Open RAN.
• The top executive further adds that Vi is the only loss-making private telecom operator in the country. 
• Moondra, however, declined to comment on Vi's long-due funding talks, which it has been trying to raise. This is an important concern considering Vi needs to pay the outstanding dues to the government and other vendors to expand the services in the country.

We can expect Vi to start rolling out the 5G services by the end of 2024. The company has secured 5G spectrum allocation in 17 circles across India which includes Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Kolkata, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West), and West Bengal. Some users in Mumbai and Pune already have access to Vi 5G network. 

This comes after Vi has launched new annual plans with Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ Hotstar subscriptions. These are cheaper than the same plans from Jio and Airtel. Vodafone Idea currently has 228 million users in India but the number has been on the decline, as users appear to be opting for Airtel or Jio, which have 449 and 277 million users respectively.