Airtel joins hands with Ericsson for 5G-ready network

Bharti Airtel on Wednesday announced it has selected Ericsson to deploy 5G-ready cloud technology on its core network across India. The announcement made at the India Mobile Congress 2019 in New Delhi comes ahead of the commencement of 5G trials across the country.

“The Indian telecom market is witnessing massive surge in data usage. To address this demand and evolving consumption patterns, we are investing in innovative technologies and solutions to enable a superlative data experience for our customers in India. Randeep Sekhon, CTO, Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

Ericcson said this partnership will bring enhancements to Airtel's network and enable one of the largest telecom network companies in India to address the rapidly growing demand for high-speed data services.

"The deployment of these technologies will help Airtel in meeting the rapidly evolving demands of customers and also enable swift deployment of new use cases and innovative services for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and Internet of Things (IoT).” Nunzio Mirtillo, Head of Ericsson South East Asia, Oceania and India at Ericsson, said.

'Will bring enhancements to Airtel's network'

Ericsson to manufacture 5G telecom gear in India

Earlier this week, Ericsson announced it will start manufacturing 5G network equipment in India once the service is operational in the country. Ericsson has its factory in India where it is making 4G network gears. Airtel has also been working with Huawei to deploy its 5G technology transmission equipment. In the last six months, Airtel said it has deployed 100 hops of 5G technology transmission equipment of Huawei.

Meanwhile, Huawei remains confident that it will be given permission to participate in 5G trials in India. Earlier, Bharti Airtel chief Sunil Mittal lent his support to Huawei while speaking at the World Economic Forum in New Delhi. Mittal had said Huawei's products are "leading edge" and "superior" to rivals, and asserted that the firm "should be in play" in India.

Picture: AP