By Telecom Lead Team: At the Mobile World Congress, Bharti Airtel announced it has
appointed Nokia Siemens Networks to manage its TD-LTE network in Maharashtra.
The leading private operator in the country plans to launch TD-LTE
services this year in India’s fastest growing telecom market. The service will
offer a much improved experience when using bandwidth-intensive applications,
with more consistent network coverage and faster response times (low latency).
Bharti Airtel will deploy its TD-LTE network in the 2.3 GHz
frequency band allocated by the Indian government for broadband wireless access
technologies.
In the next five years, data will be the main thrust
in India, riding on the waves of 3G or 4G technologies. As per industry
estimates, mobile data traffic in the country will increase nearly 100-fold by
2015 and consumers will stream nearly 600 hours of video content – every
second, thus paving way for the ensuing data revolution!” said Sanjay Kapoor,
CEO Bharti Airtel (India & South Asia).
LTE, in conjunction with 3G, will lead the data revolution
and drive fundamental changes in individual lifestyles, businesses and the
society at large, according to Kapoor. We look forward to the advent of 4G
technology which will be launched in India at the same time, as the rest of the
world.”
Nokia Siemens Networks will support the large-scale 4G
commercial rollout in India by offering the newly introduced and industry’s
first TD-LTE 6 pipes radio. Nokia Siemens
Networks is widely deploying this TD-LTE solution to commercial customers in
Russia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
Additionally Nokia Siemens Networks’ NetAct operations
support system will enable effective and consolidated monitoring, management
and optimization of Bharti
Airtel‘s GSM and TD-LTE networks.
Nokia Siemens Networks will provide
network design, integration, commissioning and optimization services to the operator
for rapid roll-out of the network and full set of care services including
hardware, software and competence development services.
Nokia Siemens Networks is one of the first companies to
demonstrate TD-LTE on 2.3 GHz BWA spectrum in India using commercial hardware
at its Bengaluru R&D facility in October 2010.
From networks to devices, Nokia Siemens Networks offers a
full range of LTE solutions,” said Ashish Chowdhary, head of Customer
Operations Asia and Middle East at Nokia Siemens Networks. As Bharti
Airtel’s long-standing partner, we are glad to be chosen for the launch of 4G
services. With our expertise and focus on mobile broadband, we hope to assist
the operator in taking mobile broadband experience to a completely new level for
its customers.”
Please see the complete coverage of Mobile World Congress here
