As a part of the 5G FWA deal, Airtel will even roll out Nokia’s Wi-Fi 6 entry factors
Indian operator Bharti Airtel has awarded a contract to Nokia and Qualcomm to assist the growth of 5G Fastened Wi-fi Entry (FWA) and Wi-Fi options throughout India, the previous mentioned in a launch.
Underneath the phrases of this settlement, Nokia will provide Airtel with its 5G FWA outside gateway receiver and Wi-Fi 6 Entry Level, leveraging Qualcomm Modem-RF and Wi-Fi 6 chipsets. The adoption of mounted wi-fi broadband through 5G networks is rising as a key use case, notably in India, the place fiber penetration stays low and the demand for digital providers continues to surge.
Airtel will deploy Nokia’s FastMile 5G outside receivers, designed to serve a number of households concurrently, lowering connection prices. These receivers function high-gain antennas to increase broadband protection over lengthy distances whereas optimizing radio sources. Moreover, the FastMile 5G outside receiver integrates Energy-over-Ethernet (PoE) expertise, enabling versatile set up on partitions, balconies or poles.
As a part of the deal, Airtel will even roll out Nokia’s Wi-Fi 6 entry factors, which provide clever mesh networking and self-optimizing capabilities, Airtel mentioned.
Airtel additionally highlighted that Nokia’s 5G FWA and Wi-Fi 6 units might be manufactured in India.
Sandy Motley, president of mounted networks at Nokia, mentioned: “India’s huge measurement and inhabitants density presents distinctive challenges for broadband connectivity. In these communities the place fiber is tough to deploy, FWA can be utilized to offer dependable wi-fi broadband connectivity. With our 5G FWA and Wi-Fi 6 options inbuilt collaboration with Qualcomm Applied sciences, Bharti Airtel will have the ability to present prospects with fiber-like speeds which have gotten important in immediately’s digital financial system.”
In November 2024, Nokia had secured a multi-year extension deal from Bharti Airtel to deploy 4G and 5G gear throughout key Indian cities and states
Underneath the phrases of this earlier deal, Nokia will deploy gear from its 5G AirScale portfolio together with base stations, baseband models and the newest era of Huge MIMO radios, all powered by its ReefShark System-on-Chip expertise.
The European vendor famous that these options will improve Airtel’s community with further 5G capability and protection. Moreover, Nokia will modernize Airtel’s present 4G community with multiband radios and baseband gear, which may additionally assist 5G.
In October, Swedish vendor Ericsson mentioned it had secured a brand new 5G contract for promoting 5G gear from Bharti Airtel.
Airtel is presently utilizing gear from Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung to offer 5G providers.
Bharti Airtel beforehand confirmed that it has began re-farming its present mid-band spectrum with the primary purpose of accommodating the rising site visitors demand on its 5G community. To accommodate the rising variety of prospects migrating to its 5G community, Airtel mentioned it’s within the strategy of re-farming its mid-band spectrum to broaden 5G providers on its 1.8 GHz, 2.1 GHz and a pair of.3 GHz bands throughout India.
The Indian operator had secured a complete of 19,800 megahertz of spectrum within the 900 MHz, 1.8 GHz, 2.1 GHz, 3.3 GHz and 26 GHz bands in a earlier public sale carried out by the Indian authorities in July 2022. In June, the telco secured further spectrum to broaden its 5G providing.