Ericsson wins multi-year 4G, 5G NOC managed services deal with Bharti Airtel

Time of India

3 hours ago

NEW DELHI: Swedish telecom gear maker
Ericsson
has won a new multi-year network operations center (NOC) managed services deal from India's
Bharti Airtel
, deepening the partnership between the two telecom companies.
Under this agreement, Ericsson will enable intent-based operations, powered by its centralised NOC, to manage Airtel services across 4G,
5G
non-standalone (NSA), 5G standalone (SA), fixed wireless access (FWA), private networks, and network slicing, the companies said in a joint statement Monday.
This partnership will see Ericsson manage Airtel's pan-India network through its NOC while scaling FWA and network slicing across the country.
Commercial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Network slicing is one of the top applications of the fifth-generation or 5G networks, enabling telcos to offer a virtual network layer for specific bandwidth needs, such as AR/VR content streaming, mission-critical communications, or autonomous vehicles, based on pre-defined service level agreements (SLAs).
In India, Airtel along with
Reliance Jio
offer their respective commercial 5G fixed broadband services to customers, with the use case seeing a rapid uptake nationwide in recent months.
'We are excited to enhance our strong collaboration with Ericsson as we pursue our goal of creating a future-ready network that delivers an exceptional experience for our customers. We believe that these innovative technologies will empower us to meet the growing data demands of consumers in a digitally connected India,' said Randeep Sekhon, chief technology officer (CTO), Bharti Airtel.
'By leveraging Intent-Based NOC Operations, we will enable Airtel to unlock wider service diversification to meet customer needs, thereby enabling new revenue opportunities for Airtel,' said Andres Vicente, head of market area Southeast Asia, Oceania and India, Ericsson.
Ericsson and its Finnish rival Nokia already have a 5G radio access network (RAN) deal with Airtel, Jio, and
Vodafone Idea
(Vi). India's third-largest telecom carrier had also awarded a 5G RAN deal to Korean Samsung.
Earlier this year, Ericsson won a 5G Core deal from Airtel, which will eventually lead to the upgradation of Sunil Mittal-led telco's network architecture to Standalone (SA).
As part of this agreement, Ericsson will deploy its Signaling Controller solution within Airtel's network, and will introduce its SA-enabled Charging and Policy solution to strategically improve Airtel's 5G monetisation efforts, enabling the development of new business models.