Bharti Airtel, one of the big three operators in the Indian market, has contracted Aviat Networks for wireless multiband radio solutions.
Aviat Networks describes itself as a global innovator in microwave business and a leading expert in wireless transport solutions . Airtel will deploy Aviat's all outdoor WTM 4800 E-Band and Multi-Band solutions to significantly expand the capacity of its microwave backhaul network.
Aviat's Multi-Band vendor-agnostic feature enables traffic aggregation from multiple links which in turn eases network congestion and gives better speeds to customers. Aviat Networks will also undertake maintenance and deployment as part of the roll-out.
Airtel will deploy unique dual channel E-Band radio to augment its existing installed microwave network as well as new greenfield links in support of accelerated 5G network build out – although it could be argued that Airtel’s 5G rollout has been quite accelerated already.
We reported in August that it had signed up Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung as vendor partners for its 5G deployment, following the completion of India’s recent spectrum auction at which it spent just under US$5.5 billion.
Bharti Airtel announced its commercial 5G launch at the India Mobile Congress event in October. Its 5G services have gone live in eight cities and the operator’s chairman, Sunil Mittal, has pledged to extend coverage to most Indian cities by March 2023. Nationwide coverage is promised by March 2024.
