Airtel, Tata Group team up for ‘Made in India’ 5G network solutions

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New Delhi: Bharti Airtel and Tata Group on Monday announced a strategic partnership for implementing 5G network solutions for India. Tata Group has developed “O-RAN (Open Radio Access Network) based Radio and NSA/SA (Non-Standalone/standalone) Core and has integrated a totally indigenous telecom stack, leveraging the Group capabilities and that of its partners”, according to a joint statement.

This will be available for commercial development starting January 2022.

“Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) brings its global system integration expertise and helps align the end-to-end solution to both 3GPP and O-RAN standards, as the network and equipment are increasingly embedded into software,” it said.

Airtel will pilot and deploy the indigenous solution as part of its 5G rollout plans in India and begin the pilot in January 2022, as per the norms formulated by the government.

“These ‘Made in India’ 5G product and solutions are aligned to global standards, and inter-operate with other products based on standard open interfaces and those defined by the O-RAN Alliance,” the statement said.

The 5G solutions, once commercially proven in Airtel’s diverse and brownfield network will open export opportunities for India, which is now the second-largest telecom market globally, it added.

Open RAN or open radio access network architecture is industry terminology for interoperability and standardisation of radio access network elements including products and software from various vendors.