Bharti Airtel Signs VoLTE Deal With Ericsson, First VoLTE Contract for Swedish Manufacturer in India

The Swedish equipment manufacturer Ericsson has bagged a new contract from the telecom giant Bharti Airtel to deploy VoLTE technology for the company and IP Multimedia Sub-systems (IMS), as reported by ET Telecom. This move comes in the light of Bharti Airtel’s strategy to combat Reliance Jio, the rival telco which was also the first one to deploy nationwide VoLTE technology and VoLTE calling with its arrival in the market in 2016. This is the first time that Ericsson has bagged a VoLTE contract in India. Until now, Nokia has been the sole provider of VoLTE technology in India to the major three telcos, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.

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Bharti Airtel Resorts to Multi-Vendor Approach

In its report, ET Telecom highlighted that with granting this new contract to Ericsson, Bharti Airtel has adopted a multi-vendor approach for its network in India specifically speaking for VoLTE service. As per another report dating a few weeks back, Bharti Airtel had granted a major Rs 402 crore contract to the Finnish telecom equipment manufacturer Nokia. It is worth noting that currently, Bharti Airtel is offering VoLTE services in 21 circles in India with Jammu & Kashmir being an exception. With this new development, Bharti Airtel CTO, Randeep Sekhon also commented, as he said, “With this, we are introducing a new vendor for VoLTE. The contract is for one circle initially, but the scope can be increased.” However, there has been no hint about the value of the new contract which has been assigned to Ericsson.