Bharti Airtel and Nokia are expanding their partnership with the deployment of Nokia's Packet Core appliance-based and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) solutions to continue Airtel's evolution towards Advanced 5G. This deployment aims to enhance network performance for Airtel's 4G and 5G customer base across India, the companies said in a joint statement on April 2, 2025.
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4G and 5G Integration
Nokia's Packet Core solution will integrate 4G and 5G technologies into a single set of servers, improving network efficiency and scalability. The solution enables Airtel to optimise its hardware footprint, reduce operational costs, and enhance service agility. Additionally, Nokia's FWA will boost home broadband and enterprise-critical applications by increasing capacity and coverage.
Network Automation
"Using Nokia's converged Packet Core solution for 5G standalone (SA) readiness, Airtel will continue its evolution toward advanced 5G and simplify its network architecture to meet the ever growing need of data while reducing network operational costs. This will help Airtel optimise its hardware footprint and reduce its cost per bit by utilising appliance-based Packet Core gateways, while maintaining the rest of the network elements in a cloud-native architecture," Nokia said.
The multi-year deployment, spanning the majority of Airtel's service regions, includes network automation using Nokia's automation framework. This will support zero-touch service launches and streamlined lifecycle management, expediting new service rollouts while reducing operational complexities. According to the official release, Airtel will also leverage Nokia's converged Packet Core for 5G Standalone (SA) readiness, simplifying network architecture and cutting costs per bit.
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Integration of GenAI
Another component of this collaboration is the integration of Generative AI (GenAI) for service orchestration and assurance. "The collaboration entails advancing autonomous networks by utilising GenAI for service orchestration and assurance," Nokia said.
Executive Insights
"Nokia's innovative Packet Core deployment architecture enables critical changes to our network quality and reliability for meeting the fast-rising growth in customer data requirements. This rollout further demonstrates our longstanding success in jointly collaborating to strengthen the overall Airtel customer experience," said Randeep Sekhon, CTO of Airtel.
"We are pleased to bolster its 5G SA readiness. Airtel's use of Nokia's Packet Core to build greater network agility and reliability demonstrates how we are both helping customers solve problems and furthering Nokia's leadership position in the Core space, in India and around the world," said Raghav Sahgal, President of Cloud and Network Services at Nokia.
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Expanding Nokia's Core Network Footprint
Nokia's solution provides a pre-integrated and modular server-based configuration for increased flexibility to support a wider range of business and operational deployment models. This allows Airtel to better target new customers and create new revenue streams.
Nokia further said its Packet Core solution for Fixed Wireless Access enables additional capacity for home broadband and enterprise-critical application services for the delivery of extreme bandwidth and capacity to customers.
The deployment extends Nokia's existing core network footprint within Airtel, which already includes technologies such as VoLTE (Voice over LTE), HSS (Home Subscriber Server), HLR (Home Location Register), UDM (Unified Data Management) and VoNR (Voice over New Radio), along with MANO (automated Management and Orchestration).
Nokia's Packet Core and FWA solutions will help Airtel cater to new customer segments, create fresh revenue opportunities, and further enhance its market position.
