Airtel & Cisco Join Hands to Launch India's largest 5G Ready Optical Network

Telco giant, Bharti Airtel announces its association with Cisco to launch India's largest 5G-ready, 100G IP and optical integrated network designed to augment network availability, scale and capacity. This collaboration is part of Airtel's initiative to develop a 5G ready network. The new network is expected to serve the increasing demand for high-speed data services across the country.

Presently, India holds the second position in the global telecommunication market. It has a subscriber base close to 1.17 billion. Cisco's recent Annual Internet Report predicts that India would have about 67.2 million 5G connections by 2023, and about 66 percent of all devices would be mobile-connected by 2023, out of which 34 percent would be wired or Wi-Fi connected.

“Airtel continues to transform its network to ensure greater availability and reach across India to deliver a best-in-class mobile experience for our customers,” says Randeep Sekhon, CTO, Bharti Airtel. He continues, “Our ongoing collaboration with Cisco is critical in helping us to be 5G-ready, collapsing multiple legacy domains to build a flatter, simpler and automated network with more bandwidth to support internet services and the endless growth in consumer and business applications people rely on every day.”

The company's network serves more than 280 million mobile subscribers across 4G and 2G technologies. The new IP would be Ethernet over Fiber network and it would be the largest hyper-complex brownfield network transformation which would be first of its kind in India. The new network would integrate Cisco IP and optical solutions along with segment routing to extend the services towards rural communities while enhancing network availability and creating cost efficiencies.

“Airtel is transforming its network to be modern, adaptable and scalable to accommodate the phenomenal mobile growth in India,” states Anand Bhaskar, Managing Director, Cisco Service Provider Business, India and SAARC. He adds, “Together we are delivering a highly-scalable IP and optical network throughout India that enables broader mobile access to connect more people and more businesses who can do more with the internet.”

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