Bharti Airtel and Tata Group have announced a strategic partnership for implementing 5G network solutions in India, which will be available for commercial development from January 2022.
According to a press release from Airtel, the global communications solutions provider with over 471 mn customers in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, it will pilot and deploy this indigenous solution as part of its 5G rollout plans in India and start the pilot in January 2022, as per the guidelines formulated by the Government of India.
Tata Group has developed a ‘state of the art’ O-RAN-based Radio & NSA/SA Core and has integrated a totally indigenous telecom stack, leveraging the Group capabilities and that of its partners.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) brings its global system integration expertise and helps align the end-to-end solution to both 3GPP and O-RAN standards, as the network and equipment are increasingly embedded into the software.
These ‘Made in India’ 5G products and solutions are aligned to global standards and inter-operate with other products based on standard open interfaces and those defined by the O-RAN Alliance. The 5G solutions, once commercially proven in Airtel’s diverse and brownfield network will open export opportunities for India, which is now the second-largest telecom market in the world.
Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India and South Asia) Bharti Airtel said, “We are delighted to join forces with the Tata Group to make India a global hub for 5G and allied technologies. With its world-class technology ecosystem and talent pool, India is well-positioned to build cutting-edge solutions and applications for the world. This will also provide a massive boost to India becoming an innovation and manufacturing destination.”
N. Ganapathy Subramaniam from the Tata Group/ TCS said, “As a Group, we are excited about the opportunity presented by 5G and adjacent possibilities. We are committed to building a world-class networking equipment and solutions business to address these opportunities in the networking space. We are pleased to have Airtel as our customer in this initiative.”
