Apart from Delhi, Ericsson will provide LTE networks in four other circles for Bharti Airtel.
The new agreement includes rollout of 3G services in both UMTS 2100 MHZ and UMTS 900MHz band (in three circles). The first challenge is cost, and the new software addresses that problem by supporting LTE Category 0 with half-duplex operation in FDD to limit functionality and capability to what is specifically required for IoT applications, such as large-scale sensor and smart meter deployments. “Thus, boosting uplink speeds plays an integral part in the process of improving indoor coverage”, explained Arun Bansal, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Unit Radio, Ericsson.
Airtel’s CTO Abhay Sarvargoankar said that the investment in 3G networks is on line with the telco’s focus on building next-gen smartphone network.
Ericsson research suggests that by 2020, there will be an average of 4.3 mobile devices per user; combined with the burgeoning “Internet of Things” market, which promises 26 billion connected devices also by 2020, indoor coverage and capacity becomes increasingly challenging.
“While operators have understood that they need to design mobile networks for increasing amounts of data now, Wi-Fi networks have traditionally been the solution of choice for indoor connectivity for enterprise customers”, Sapien said.
For Delhi, Ericsson will enable Bharti Airtel to meet growing customer demand for mobile broadband services while delivering superior network performance. “We are delighted to partner with Ericsson to offer a world-class 4G experience for our customers in Delhi”. Ericsson will provide its multi-standard radio equipment from the Ericsson RBS 6000 base station family for macro and small cells. Incidentally, Airtel is offering 4G LTE services in 300 towns at 3G prices to promote the scope of 4G business. “We are pleased to collaborate with Ericsson to jointly drive standards adoption of solutions that can be used immediately on existing operator networks”.
Ericsson India Head Paolo Colella said the company is the market leader on LTE technology with 40 per cent of the world’s LTE smartphone traffic now served by its network. Our global leadership and expertise made it possible to roll out the LTE network in record time. “For operators who wish to deploy and manage indoor networks themselves, Ericsson will offer easy-to-deploy hardware and installation tools”, stated Hans Vestberg, President and CEO, Ericsson.