Telecom equipment major ZTE is in talks with Bharti Airtel to supply LTE 4G equipments for Mumbai and Delhi circles.
ZTE, which competes with 4G equipment rivals such as Huawei, NSN, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Samsung, has already deployed 4G LTE networks for Bharti Airtel in Kolkata, Punjab and Haryana circles. Airtel is the only Indian telecom operator to launch 4G on TD-LTE technology.
Earlier media reports suggested that Huawei may be supporting Airtel for its 4G services in Delhi circle. Airtel was planning to launch 4G in November 2013 in Delhi.
Interestingly, Aircel, one of the rivals of Bharti Airtel, recently selected ZTE for rolling out LTE in Chennai and Rest of Tamil Nadu.
“We are in discussions to deploy 4G network in metro cities (using LTE technology) but Airtel has not taken a decision yet… There is no time-frame to give,” said ZTE Senior Vice President Renjun Zhang.
He declined, however, to provide further details. According to sources, the deal would involve setting up of more than 5,000 towers for these two circles, which have about 138 million subscribers put together.
For 4G, ZTE has already installed more than 1,800 base transceiver stations (BTS) across the country, PTI reported on Thursday.
When asked about Reliance Jio Infocomm, the 4G venture of Reliance Industries (RIL), Renjun said ZTE has conducted trials for 4G terminal devices (handsets) but there is no decision on that either.
The Mukesh Ambani-led RJIL has already partnered with Samsung for 4G BTSes already. Reports suggest that the deal is for supplying about 14,000 BTS.
