Vodafone Idea (Vi), one of the major telecom operators in the country, is reportedly in talks with Nokia, a Finnish telecom gear vendor, to replace Huawei 4G gear from its networks. Nokia might replace Huawei’s 4G gear in some parts of the country. It will be one of the biggest swap deals for Nokia in India.
Nokia Might Deploy 12,000 5G Ready Sites, 4,000 Small Cells for Vi in Capital
According to a Reuters report, Nokia might deploy 12,000 5G ready sites and 4,000 small cells for Vodafone Idea (Vi) in India’s capital, New Delhi. India is reducing its dependence on Chinese companies for telecom needs rapidly. The Modi Government’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat mission is at full flow, and that is the reason none of the telcos partnered with the Chinese vendors during 5G trials.
Huawei and ZTE were completely ignored by the telcos during the 5G trials in India. However, Huawei still believes that it has a bright long-term future in India.
Regardless, the company has had to lose a lot of business globally. Apart from India, the United States of America and the European countries have said that they are not going to include Huawei in their future plans anymore.
It is worth noting that India hasn’t explicitly banned Huawei from doing business with the telecom operators. But, India now has a trusted list of gear vendors, and the government hasn’t included Huawei in that trusted list.
Huawei officials are hopeful of a better outcome for the company in India in the long term. For now, there’s no new business for Huawei in the sub-continent nation.
Nokia already has expertise in replacing Huawei gear as it has done that already in international markets for major telecom operators, including BT, Proximus, and Orange Belgium. Huawei had dominated the Indian and international markets for a very long time. However, now the company is being ignored, and the European vendors, including Nokia and Ericsson, are getting to do more business because of that.
