Telecom major Vi on Wednesday officially launched its 5G services in Chennai. This is in the form of a phased out launch with the telco already activating 5G network connectivity across a number of sites in Chennai and now accelerating the roll-out.
As part of its ongoing expansion plan in Tamil Nadu, Vi will also extend 5G services to Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli , Salem, Tiruppur, Vellore and the Union Territory of Pondicherry by May 2026.
With this launch, Vi 5G is now available across all five metro cities — Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Chennai, in addition to 50 other cities.
This expansion is part of Vi’s broader 5G rollout strategy to expand footprint to 133 cities across 17 priority circles. Under this plan, Vi said it is prioritising key markets including industrial hubs, high data consumption centres and emerging urban clusters in Tamil Nadu. The planned rollout in the next two months covers key industrial hubs such as Coimbatore, Salem and Tiruppur; healthcare and education hub such as Vellore; Tiruchirappalli.
Sai Venkataraman, Circle Business Head – Tamil Nadu, Vi said that as per current count, Tamil Nadu has around 1.46 crore Vi subscribers, and the net additions have been positive in the last 2-3 months in the circle. “The launch [of 5G] in Chennai, along with our existing presence in Madurai and upcoming rollouts in cities such as Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli, Salem, Tiruppur and Vellore, marks an important step in this journey. Our investments in strengthening the network, combined with the growing adoption of our Unlimited Data plans like Vi Non-Stop Hero are driving strong growth in data consumption,” he added.
Vi also announced its sponsorship of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) as the team’s Official Communications Partner for the next three seasons. The cricket stadium in Chepauk, Chennai is one site where the company has already activated 5G, the Vi official pointed out.
To support its 5G experience, Vi has partnered with Nokia to deploy advanced, energy-efficient infrastructure and has implemented AI-powered Self-Optimising Networks (SON) to automatically optimize network performance.
Published on April 8, 2026