9:30 AM -- India's fourth-largest operator, Idea Cellular Ltd. , has sanctioned a huge budget for fiberization of sites and increasing its backhaul capacity, the company's chief technology officer, Anil Tandan, tells Light Reading India.

The company is dealing with exponential data growth and, right now, the most congested 12-15 percent of sites in cities where Idea's 3G is available, are fiberized. Idea hopes to increase it beyond 20 percent in the next year and extend to even smaller towns.

Idea's data usage has gone up by 20 percent every month recently and it has been challenging for the operator to identify a partner that could match its 3G speeds, as nobody has that sort of a backhaul. What will they do?

Find out by reading the complete interview here: Anil Tandan: CTO, Idea Cellular.

— Jatinder Singh, Principal Correspondent, Light Reading India