India’s leading telecom operator Bharti Airtel launched its Voice over LTE services in Mumbai today. Recently, the telecom giant also announced that it will soon launch an affordable Android-based 4G smartphone at a price of Rs 2,500. The move is said to be company’s answer to Reliance Jio which is at present ruling telecom services in India. The company claims that VoLTE services will provide HD quality voice calls to customers along with faster call setup time.

All existing Airtel 4G customers having 4G/LTE enabled devices will be able to avail the benefits of this service. Customers will be allowed to make voice calls to any mobile or landline networks using Airtel VoLTE and there will be no additional charges for the VoLTE and calls. Customers will be charged as per existing plan. The company also claims that VoLTE calls will automatically fall back to 3G or 2G network, in case there is no 4G network available, to ensure that customers continue to stay connected all the time.

The service has been launched in Mumbai and will soon be made available to other telecom circles as well. The company also claims that the service enables data speed of up to 135Mbps by combining spectrum capabilities in 2300Mhz (TD LTE) and 1800 Mhz (FD LTE) by deploying 4G Advanced Carrier Aggregation technology.

Speaking on the occasion, Abhay Savargaonkar, Directors-Networks, Bharti Airtel said,”This is a significant milestone in Airtel’s network transformation journey under Project Leap. Airtel has built a world-class 4G network across India and with the VoLTE compatible device ecosystem beginning to mature, we believe it’s the right time to enable VoLTE calling as part of our service portfolio. Over the next few months, we will rapidly accelerate the deployment of VoLTE to cover all key geographies to bring HD quality calling to our customers. We keenly look forward to our device partners enabling Airtel VoLTE on their smartphones..”

How to get Airtel’s VoLTE Service On Your Mobile

Step 1. Visit the official site airtel.in/volte to check the compatibility of the smartphone. If your device is not compatible yet, there is no need to worry as the company will keep adding the devices.

Step 2. Upgrading your smartphone’s OS to the latest version that supports VoLTE.

Step 3. Ensure that the device has an Airtel 4G SIM. Those who don’t, can upgrade to the 4G SIM by visiting the nearest Airtel store.

Step 4. For those using dual-SIM smartphone, ensure that Airtel 4GB SIM has been inserted in the data SIM slot or SIM slot 1. Also, ensure that network mode has been set as 4G/3G/2G (Auto), as per the official report.

Smartphones compatible to Airtel VoLTE

Samsung:
Samsung J700
Samsung A800
Samsung J2 Pro
Samsung J2 2016

Apple:
iPhone SE
iPhone 6
iPhone 6S
iPhone 6 Plus
iPhone 7
iPhone 7 Plus

Xiaomi:
Xiaomi Mi Max Prime
Xiaomi Mi Max
Redmi Note 4
Xiaomi Mi5

Gionee:
Gionee A1

Oppo:
Oppo F3 Plus

The move is said to be company’s answer to the Reliance group’s Jio 4G service that has gained immense popularity in India with the launch of its free JioPhone with 4G support. It is for us to wait and see as to what effect does this move make on Jio’s ever-increasing popularity.