Ericsson has announced the deployment of 100,000 Massive MIMO 5G radios for Bharti Airtel across 12 circles in India, achieving this milestone within a record time frame of 500+ days.
Bharti Airtel has opted for energy-efficient solutions from Ericsson’s Radio System products and its 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) along with the MINI-LINK (microwave) mobile transport portfolios.
Nunzio Mirtillo, Head of Market Area Southeast Asia, Oceania & India, expressed, “The deployment of 100,000 Ericsson 5G radios demonstrates our shared commitment to innovation, speed, and service quality. We remain dedicated to supporting Airtel in delivering a superior 5G experience to customers across India.”
Randeep Sekhon, Chief Technology Officer at Bharti Airtel, said: “Ericsson is a long-standing partner of Airtel, and we are delighted to collaborate with them in achieving this significant milestone of deploying 100,000 5G radios across 12 Airtel circles. We have over 65 million customers on our network who are now enjoying blazing-fast unlimited 5G data at no additional cost.”
In October 2023, Airtel and Ericsson announced the testing of Ericsson’s pre-commercial Reduced Capability (RedCap) software on Airtel’s 5G network. This testing, conducted in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, marked the first implementation and validation of RedCap in India, carried out on a 5G TDD network.
Since the introduction of 5G business in India, Airtel has already amassed over 65 million 5G customers on its network. Airtel’s 5G Plus service is currently available across various districts nationwide and is slated to cover the entire country by March 2024.
