Airtel, one of India’s biggest telecom service providers, has partnered with American chipmaker Qualcomm to rollout 5G services in India. Airtel made the announcement in a recent exchange filing and said that it will be using Qualcomm’s 5G platforms to enable 5G services in India as soon as possible.
The Indian telecom company recently tested 5G services in Hyderabad. Airtel boasted about the fact that it is the first company in India to successfully demo live 5G services over a commercial network, beating Reliance’s Jio in the process. Now, the telco will be using Qualcomm’s 5G resources to roll out “virtualized” 5G networks in the country.
“Through Airtel’s network vendors and device partners, it will utilize the Qualcomm 5G RAN (radio access network) platforms to roll out virtualized and open RAN-based 5G networks,” Airtel said in a statement. Reliance Jio is also using Qualcomm’s RAN platform for its 5G network, as revealed earlier last year. The company achieved up to 1Gbps speeds while testing the equipment in the US.
So, Airtel will be reportedly using Qualcomm’s Radio Access Network (RAN) to deliver Gigabit speeds to homes and businesses in India. Apart from this, the partnership will also help the company to handle the roll-out of the 5G services in the country in a cost-effective manner.
Moreover, Airtel said that it will be able to deliver multi-gigabit speeds wirelessly to customers. This, as per the company’s statement, will allow customers to download gigabit-sized files in seconds and stream 4K video on-the-go.
“For customers, the ultra-fast and low latency of 5G will unlock a digital world of limitless possibilities – gigabit size file downloads in seconds and 4K video streaming on the go across smartphones and computing devices, Immersive Technologies such as Virtual Reality and SMART Homes with connected things,” the company further added.
According to Rajen Vagadia, the VP of Qualcomm India Pvt Ltd. and the President of Qualcomm India, this partnership will play a “critical role in Airtel’s plans to add 5G network coverage and capacity where and when it is needed the most,”
