Telenor India, on Tuesday announced expansion of its network in Bihar and Jharkhand. The company will be adding 950 new sites covering over 3380 rural areas in the circle. This expansion is in addition to the network swap and upgradation happening at the existing 3235 sites in B&J as part of the modernisation plan.

With this the number of Telenor sites will go up to 4185 in the states of Bihar and Jharkhand. The new network will help Telenor deliver better voice quality and enhanced data speed to its customers.

“Telenor is committed to offer seamless coverage and network experience in B&J. We will continue to invest in one of our most successful and fastest growing markets. With the new sites we are taking our most affordable ‘Paisa vasool’ voice and Internet services even more closer to our customers. We are preparing ourselves to meet the demands to enable the digital lifestyle for them. The new new network will fullfil our ambition of Internet for All and will be future ready to launch any technology to serve our customers efficiently,” said Sharad Mehrotra, CEO, Telenor (India) Communications.

Work on the new sites has already started and is expected to be over by the end of 2015.

Along with the network expansion and modernisation plan, Telenor is also increasing its retail footprint. By this year-end the company plans to add at least 14,250 new sales outlets taking its retail base to over 80,000.

“We are confident that these aggressive network and retail expansions will enhance our network capacity to meet the rising demand for not only voice but also data services in the circle. With energy efficient, flexible and scalable infrastructure, we will be able to optimise network costs and improve our outdoor as well as indoor coverage,” said A.E.A. Jameel, Circle Business Head, Bihar and Jharkhand, Telenor (India) communications.

Telenor currently offers voice and data services on a 2G network and has 22% of its subscribers accessing Internet. The company is working with Huawei India to modernise its existing network and make its future ready across its six operational circles. As part of the deal, in the next two years, 24000 sites in Telenor circles will be swapped and modernised with state-of-the-art equipments offering enhanced power and spectral efficiencies for superior customer experience. In the first phase, 5000 sites covering 100 towns will be ready to deliver high speed Internet services by end of this year.

As of September 2015, Telenor had 7.57 million subscribers in B&J. The circle has seen a 37% growth in Internet users since November 2014. The company is ranked number 5 in customer market share. It stood at number 5 in revenue market share in quarter ending June 2015.