Bharti Airtel and TCS to deploy 5G network solutions in India

Bharti Airtel and Tata Consultancy Services have now entered into a partnership to implement 5G networking solutions in India.

Bharti Airtel is a leading telecom company with operations in 18 countries across Africa and Asia. It is headquartered in New Delhi and ranks among the three mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers

Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India and South Asia) Bharti Airtel said, "We are delighted to join forces with the Tata Group to make India a global hub for 5G and allied technologies. With its world-class technology ecosystem and talent pool, India is well positioned to build cutting edge solutions and applications for the world. This will also provide a massive boost to India becoming an innovation and manufacturing destination."

N. Ganapathy Subramaniam from the Tata Group/ TCS said, "As a Group, we are excited about the opportunity presented by 5G and adjacent possibilities. We are committed to building a world-class networking equipment and solutions business to address these opportunities in networking space. We are pleased to have Airtel as our customer in this initiative."

Tata Group has built an open radio access network along with a standalone/non-standalone cor and created a totally indigenous telecom stack. For this telecom stack, Tata Group has leveraged its own and partner's capabilities. The solution stack will be commercial development starting January 202, notes the announcement.

As a global system integration, TCS will align solutions to 3GPP and O-RAN standards to keep at pace with network connectivity and equipment being increasingly embedded into the software.

The solution will be piloted in India, starting January 2022, by Airtel along with its general 5G rollout plans, which it said are in line with the guidelines formulated by the government.