This telecom operator becomes first to test live 5G service in India

As the race for 5G progresses in the country, Bharti Airtel took an edge by becoming the first telecom operator in India to demonstrate 5G services successfully. Bharti Airtel announced on Thursday (January 28) that it orchestrated live fifth-generation (5G) service over a commercial network in Hyderabad.

Bharti Airtel explained that it used state of the art dynamic spectrum sharing so as to operate both 4G and 5G networks in the same spectrum block. One of India's major telecom companies managed to do this atop the existing spectrum in the 1800 MHz band through the Non-Stand Alone (NSA) network technology.

Airtel claimed that it took only a few seconds to download a full-length film during its demonstration of the 5G network. The company said that the 5G network could deliver ten times the speed and latency attained previously with 100 times the concurrency when compared to the technology in use.