“India will get to a situation where 4G and 2G networks will coexist for a while. 3G will probably shut down faster,” Airtel India CEO Gopal Vittal said in response to question whether 3G would be completely phased out in India. During a call with analysts for the quarter ended June 2017, Vittal said that 3G ecosystem will continue to see lower adoption and move to a complete shutdown in India, faster than other parts of the world. According to Vittal, 3G will be completely phased in India but the 2G standard will see some usage because: 2G usage will remain strong due to feature phones: "India still has about 30 million to 35 million of feature phones being shipped out every quarter. The installed base of feature phones in India is still about 70%. That is unlikely to change in a hurry. It will change over time. But even in advanced markets, you still see that 2G continues to work,” Vittal added. Increasing 4G smartphone device penetration: “All smartphones that are now coming in are coming with a 4G as well as a 3G chipset,” Vittal pointed out during the call. At least 7 out of 10 smartphones shipped by offline vendors in Q3 2016 were 4G-enabled, and 9 out of 10 smartphones sold by online vendors had 4G, according to market research firm IDC. 4G is a better technology when compared to 3G: “And as you know, 4G is spectrally more efficient. It has better delivery speeds, so the…
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