Vodafone Idea substantially increases site capacities to meet growing data demand in Punjab amidst covid lockdown

Chandigarh: To cater to the growing data demand of subscribers amidst the Covid-19 lockdown, Vodafone Idea has upgraded and enhanced capacities of over 450 sites in Punjab circle. Amidst the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown, citizens have been confined to their homes, completely dependent on telecom networks to study, work, access essentials, source information and entertainment, thus necessitating this upgradation.

In the last one year, Vodafone Idea has undertaken massive modernization of the network in Punjab while integrating the networks of erstwhile Vodafone and Idea, and has introduced new technologies into the network. Deployment of over 1200 TDD and Hundreds of Massive MIMO equipment have enabled rapid scale up of capacities and made network future fit.

The enhanced network of Vodafone Idea offering unmatched network quality has been acknowledged by OpenSignal which has reported the operator to be delivering Fastest Download and Upload Speeds in Chandigarh in its April ’20 report .

To keep up with the rise in data usage by residents of Punjab during lockdown, Vodafone Idea has been continuously monitoring network to ensure optimum efficiency in urban and rural Punjab.

Field engineer teams on the ground are working 24x7 to keep connectivity up and running. The capacity of sites has been doubled in some locations and tripled in other locations.

The cities and towns covered under the latest technology/network upgradation are: Amritsar, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Firozpur, Moga, Pathankot, Gobindgarh, Gurdaspur, Kapurthala.

At a national level, Vodafone Idea has recorded a year’s worth of traffic in just one week, said Vishant Vora, Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone Idea Limited. “We continue to augment capacity to accommodate the enormous quantum of growth in traffic post declaration of national lockdown. The longer people stay ‘in’, the busier the data highway will get. Vodafone Idea has also integrated networks across circles, leading to better capacity headroom, while best in line technology deployment has enhanced efficiency of spectrum utilization”, added Vora