Bharti Airtel, on Tuesday commissioned Nokia Networks to expand its 4G presence to six new circles using Nokia Networks’ radio network. The deal marks India’s first FDD-LTE deployment on 1800 MHz that will witness the launch of super-fast mobile broadband in 6 circles. Nokia Networks, already a supplier of Bharti Airtel’s TD-LTE network, will also deploy TD-LTE on the 2300 MHz in 2 other circles.
 
“With our commitment to build an efficient internet ecosystem in India, we continue to introduce new technologies and strengthen our existing capabilities. Having already launched the high-speed 4G services across four circles of India, we are now looking at extending this enriching high-speed broadband experience to new circles on 1800 MHz band. Our association with Nokia Networks will help us support our vision and provide a superior 4G network,” said Abhay Savargaonkar, CTO, Bharti Airtel.
 
“We are happy to expand our TD-LTE footprint with Bharti and partner with them to deploy India’s first FDD-LTE in six new circles. Our rich experience gained in deploying FDD-LTE and TD-LTE to operators around the globe will ensure a fast and smooth network rollout. On top of that, our Flexi Zone solution will ensure the best possible LTE performance even in dense areas,” said Sandeep Girotra, Vice President and Head of India Region, Nokia Networks.
 
Deal details at a glance:
 
• Professional Services such as network planning and optimization, network implementation, systems integration as well as hardware care.
• Cloud-ready network management system, NetAct, for effective and consolidated monitoring and optimization of the LTE network.
• Compact and energy-efficient Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Station, a software-defined radio platform which can be flexibly configured to increase network capacity depending on data consumption.
• Flexi Zone for the small cells rollout to improve capacity and coverage in dense areas.
 
The continuing demand for ever more mobile capacity is driven largely by growing use of video. As people from all walks of life start to use media more intensively, another issue is their continually rising expectations of throughput and service - by 2020, a typical mobile user can  consume 1 GB of data per day. LTE provides a foundation to meet these challenging demands. Nokia is a leader in the commercialization and innovation of LTE and LTE-Advanced, with 162 LTE and TD-LTE network customers worldwide.