India’s second-largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel, has partnered with Tejas Networks for expanding its optical network. Bharti Airtel has been making large strides in order to make its networks ready for 5G and also enhance its B2B and broadband services around the country. Under the deal, Tejas Networks will supply and install optical transmission network (OTN) for Bharti Airtel. This deal will help Airtel in extending Airtel’s optical network towards the edge and will also help with the 5G backhaul.
Bharti Airtel Partners With Tejas Networks to Expand Optical Network
According to an ET Telecom report, Randeep Sekhon, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Bharti Airtel, said that Airtel has been increasing the investments in its networks in the metro cities to ensure 5G readiness of the networks. Sekhon said that increased capacity would also help with catering to increased bandwidth consumption by fixed-line users and enterprise customers.
Bharti Airtel’s partnership with Tejas Networks will help the telco in making its networks aggressively ready for 5G and increased bandwidth demand in the future.
It is worth noting that Tejas Networks recently sold a 43.3% stake of the company to Tata Sons for Rs 1,850 crore. What’s interesting here is that Tata Sons is already working with Bharti Airtel for 5G. Airtel will be using the home-grown solutions provided by the Tata Group on its 5G networks.
This partnership with Tejas Networks should certainly be a seamless experience of the common denominator Tata Group in the picture. India should see live 5G networks by the first half of 2022. There’s still a long way to go and a lot of decisions that need to be taken. It will be a healthy competition between Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel when it comes to who will roll out the first 5G commercial network. Further, the subscriber market share in 5G is also something that the telcos will be looking to gain the upper hand on.
