Vodafone Idea, India’s leading telecom service provider, announced the successful consolidation of nearly 25% of its pan-India radio network integration within a short span of just five months.
Vodafone Idea was formed on August 31, 2018, following the successful merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular.
With this integration of network, customers of both Vodafone and Idea brands are able to enjoy a unified network experience on 2G, 3G & 4G, in the service areas of West Bengal, Haryana, HP, Assam, North East, AP & Telangana (excl. Hyderabad), J&K and MP & Chhattisgarh.
In addition to the full radio network consolidation of the above 8 service areas, 4G radio network consolidation has been completed in the city of Bangalore, and high speed 4G services have now been made available to both Vodafone and Idea customers in Kolkata metro. The company has also re-farmed 10 MHz of 4G spectrum of Vodafone in Mumbai to enable its customers in the metro get better data experience. In other circles, network integration is taking place on a cluster-by-cluster basis and the subscribers of both brands are gradually moving to a much larger and better network.
A focused, 3-pronged strategy is driving this consolidation of two individually strong and overlapping networks:
- Make the better and dominant of the two networks in each circle as the anchor network.
- Complement anchor network with required support from the other network, and
- Further enhance network capabilities and capacity with the introduction of new technologies such as Dynamic Spectrum Refarming (DSR), Spectrum Re-farming, M-MIMO and Small Cells.
This core strategy is being rigorously executed across all circles with meticulous planning and smart use of advances in technology by a team of experts from Vodafone Idea along with global vendors.
Further, war rooms have been set-up at national and circle levels to monitor and manage network performance on a real time basis led by Vodafone Idea’s 24/7 functioning world class SNOC in Pune. The company has undertaken special measures to avoid customer inconvenience with shifting, movement and deployment of equipment during the integration process.
Vishant Vora, CTO, Vodafone Idea
With meticulous pre-merger planning and rigorous post-merger execution, we have ensured that our customers remain confidently connected and enjoy uninterrupted services even as we integrate and optimize our network in a phased manner across circles.
