Bharti Airtel and Nokia announced an expansion of their collaboration, focusing on deploying Nokia’s Packet Core and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) solutions. This development aims to improve network performance for Airtel’s increasing base of 4G and 5G subscribers and accelerate the delivery of new 5G services.
The deployment will allow Airtel to converge its 5G and 4G networks onto a unified server infrastructure. Nokia’s FWA technology will provide additional network capacity for home broadband services and critical enterprise applications. Airtel plans to leverage Nokia’s automation framework to achieve automated service launches and streamlined lifecycle management for core network functions. This is expected to enable quicker deployment of new services while also reducing network operational expenditures.
By adopting Nokia’s converged Packet Core solution, Airtel is taking steps towards 5G standalone (SA) readiness. This move will simplify Airtel’s network architecture as it prepares for the growing demand for data. The appliance-based Packet Core gateways will help Airtel optimize its hardware resources and lower the cost per bit, while maintaining a cloud-native architecture for other network components.
This multi-year agreement covers network automation across a significant portion of Airtel’s service regions in India. The collaboration will also focus on advancing autonomous networks through the use of GenAI for service orchestration and assurance.
Randeep Sekhon, CTO of Airtel, stated that Nokia’s Packet Core architecture will bring significant improvements to network quality and reliability, addressing the rapid growth in customer data needs. He also highlighted the long-standing successful partnership between the two companies in enhancing customer experience.
Raghav Sahgal, President of Cloud and Network Services at Nokia, expressed his satisfaction in strengthening Airtel’s 5G SA readiness. He noted that Airtel’s adoption of Nokia’s Packet Core demonstrates how their collaboration helps solve customer challenges and reinforces Nokia’s position in the core network domain in India and globally.
Nokia’s solution offers a pre-integrated and modular server-based configuration, providing Airtel with increased deployment flexibility to cater to diverse business and operational models. This will enable Airtel to target new customer segments and generate new revenue streams.
The FWA capabilities within Nokia’s Packet Core solution will provide the necessary bandwidth and capacity for enhanced home broadband and enterprise-critical application services.
Nokia already has a substantial presence in Bharti Airtel’s core network, providing technologies such as VoLTE, HSS, HLR, UDM, VoNR, and MANO.
