Airtel’s 4G SIMs are 5G compatible, exing SIM card will work on 5G smartphones

Last month, major telecom network providers including Airtel, Vodafone and Jio announced they will be bringing 5G in the coming months. Now, the telecom giant announced that 5G will go live within a month.
With a plan to cover all major metro cities the end of the year, the network provider said 5G will be available in all urban parts of the country the end of 2023. Also, the company said that 5G will be available in towns and key rural areas March of 2024.
Airtel has also announced that everyone who upgraded their SIM to 4G won’t need to upgrade their SIMs since it already supports 5G. Those interested in knowing if and when their area will get 5G can check it on the Airtel Thanks app to know if their city and phone are 5G ready. Keep in mind that the feature will only go live after 5G is launched.

During the 5G spectrum bidding process, Airtel spent Rs 43,084 crore and paid instalments for the next four years which amounts to somewhere around Rs 8,312.4 crore. It is working in partnership with Nokia, Samsung and Ericsson to set up 5G infrastructure in the country. It looks like Airtel will not be installing infrastructure from scratch and use Non-Standalone 5G while Jio is going with Standalone 5G, which offers more speed.
The biggest spender in the auction, Reliance Jio also announced during its Annual General Meeting (AGM) that it will be launching 5G in major cities sometime in October this year.