Vi has also committed to connecting 90% of the country’s population with 4G by June 2025.
Vodafone Idea (Vi) has set out to launch its long-awaited 5G network from March next year.
The telco said it expects to kick off its 5G rollout across 17 cities in India.
This rollout will begin in Delhi and Mumbai. Vodafone Idea Chief Technology Officer Jagbir Singh told ET that Vi estimates its rollout will include the deployment of 5G equipment to 75,000 existing 4G sites over the next three years.
“We are not going to be too aggressive on 5G, we will go [on a] case-to-case basis depending on how the 5G is growing, how the use cases and device penetration are happening,” said Singh.
“This is a good use case right now, in absence of any other good use case to monetise 5G. We will also do it.”
Vi has also committed to connecting 90% of the country’s population with 4G by June 2025.
Vi, which is India’s third-largest mobile network operator, has fallen well behind in the 5G race to Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, both of which launched their respective services two years ago this month.
The company‘s CEO Akshaya Moondra said in January that the carrier was “six to seven months away” from launching its 5G network, however, that has yet to materialise.
Vi, which was created in 2018 following the merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, has been struggling to pay its dues with its vendor partners after it was saved from the brink of collapse by the Indian government in 2022, which acquired a 35.8% stake in the company.
The financial issues have meant that Vi has fallen behind on payments to its tower and equipment vendors, owing 135 billion rupees ($1.6bn).
In June, Vi issued close to $300 million worth of shares to Ericsson and Nokia as part of the company’s strategy to clear its dues. It means that Nokia owns a 1.5% stake in Vi, while Ericsson owns 0.9% of the telco.
However, the signs have pointed in a more positive direction for the telco recently. The carrier signed a $3.6 billion deal with network vendors Nokia, Ericsson, and Samsung last month to bolster its mobile network.
And last week, the carrier also awarded major 4G and 5G contracts to network vendor Ericsson.
The partnership will see Ericsson bolster existing 4G and deploy 5G across the Indian regions it already covers for the telco. Ericsson will provide 4G and 5G services to Vodafone across Delhi, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan.
