RIL to get broadband gear from Ericsson, Alcatel and Huawei

By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 05 January 2011, 00:09 IST
Printer Print Email Email
RIL to get broadband gear from Ericsson, Alcatel and Huawei
Mumbai: Reliance Industries recently in June bought about 95 percent of stake from Infotel Broadband and they were the only company to win the license for broadband wireless spectrum in all 22 circles. This acquisition proved fruitful for Reliance as Global telecom equipment makers Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei are in the fray to supply broadband gear to them. Reliance is adopting the long- term evolution (LTE) technology for expansion and is testing broadband equipments of three major vendors. As the number of circles for the roll out of networks is more, it is possible that Reliance may split the order for equipment between two vendors. Also Reliance has indicated capital expenditure of $1 billion for the Wireless expansion. It has divided infrastructure and equipment in the ratio of 70:30 and has estimated an expenditure of $300 million. P. Balaji, Vice-President, communications, corporate affairs & business development of Ericsson India, said that the LTE trial with RIL Infotel was a proof of concept to demonstrate the speed and capabilities of the technology and Ericsson?s global expertise in this domain. In November 2010, RIL and Ericsson announced the result of their first field trial of LTE-TDD (time division duplex) mobile system technology, which showed peak rates of 80 Mbps (megabyte per second) in the downlink and 20 Mbps in the uplink. One other company which is penetrating into the wireless broadband spectrum is Tikona Digital. It won the license in four circles and is in talks with Alcatel-Lucent for broadband equipment based on the LTE technology.