Bharti Airtel just announced that it is strategically partnering with Tata Group for implementing 5G network solutions in India. Tata Group has a ‘state-of-the-art’ Open-RAN based Radio and NSA/SA Core with an integrated indigenous telecom stack in its portfolio of 5G solutions. The 5G solutions of the Tata Group will be available for deployment from January 2022.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global IT firm, one of the successful units of the Tata Group, brought its global system expertise to the table and helped with aligning the end-to-end solution to both O-RAN and 3GPP standards.
Bharti Airtel Will Deploy Tata Group’s 5G O-RAN Solution in January 2022
Bharti Airtel will deploy Tata’s indigenous 5G O-RAN solution starting January 2022 as per the guidelines from the government. This will be Airtel’s way of countering the homegrown 5G technology from Reliance Jio.
All of Tata’s 5G solutions are made-in-India and indigenous in nature. Even though the solutions are made-in-India, they are aligned to the global standards and further can inter-operate with products and solutions based on standard open interfaces and those defined by the O-RAN Alliance.
If the indigenous 5G solutions are commercially proven in Airtel’s 5G trials, they will open a plethora of opportunities to export the technology from India.
Gopal Vittal, Managing Director (MD) and Chief Operating Officer (CEO) of Bharti Airtel, said that the telco is happy to partner with the Tata Group and drive India towards the vision of a global 5G hub and allied technologies. Vittal further said that India is in a good position to develop cutting edge solutions and applications for the world, which will provide the country with a massive boost for becoming a destination of manufacturing and innovation.
N. Ganapathy Subramaniam, CEO of TCS, said that the Tata Group is very excited about working with Airtel to seek out the opportunity for the company that 5G has presented. Subramaniam said that TCS is committed to building world-class solutions and networking equipment for addressing the opportunities in the networking space.
For the unaware, Bharti Airtel has been a board member of the O-RAN Alliance and is committed to developing O-RAN Networks in India.
