Telecom services provider Bharti Airtel has appointed Ericsson to deploy its MINI-LINK 6000 microwave mobile towers for its 5G network. This product is a part of Ericsson Radio System products and solutions. This agreement comes soon after the two companies signed the renewal of the Pan-India managed services contract in July of this year.
MINI-LINK 6000 offers advanced packet functionality including advanced sync and L3 VPN, using IP/MPLS, as well as L2, as per Ericsson’s brochure. These antennas are being made in India says the Ericsson release. Ericsson began manufacturing its telecom products in India in 1994 and the company manufactures 4G and 5G radios as well as microwave products at its Pune production facility.
In October 2019, Airtel had contracted for the deployment of Ericsson’s 5G capable Cloud Packet Core. The deployment consisted of Ericsson’s virtual Evolved Packet Gateway (vEPG) that follow ETSI standards. Ericsson Cloud Packet Core is built on Ericsson’s virtual Evolved Packet Core (EPC) applications.
As per the June 2020 edition of Ericsson Mobility Report, India has the highest usage per smartphone per month. Total traffic is projected to triple, reaching 21 Exabytes per month in 2025. In the India region, the average monthly mobile data usage per smartphone continues to show robust growth, boosted by the rapid adoption of 4G.
Long-Term Evolution (LTE) remains the dominant technology, accounting for 49 per cent of mobile subscriptions in 2019. LTE will continue to be dominant, representing 64 per cent of mobile subscriptions in 2025. LTE subscriptions in the India region are forecast to increase from 550 million in 2019 to 820 million in 2025, increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7 per cent.
