Backed by Nokia, Airtel deploys India’s largest open cloud-based VoLTE network

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel’s VoLTE (voice over-long term evolution) network in the country is being powered by Finnish telecommunications gear maker Nokia’s CloudBand-based software products.

Airtel stated that it now has the world’s largest cloud-based VoLTE network and the largest Nokia-run VoLTE in the globe. The network now supports over 110 million customers.

VoLTE uses 4G internet to place voice calls, as opposed to 2G or 3G connections that are widely used.

“Our objective is to reap the benefits of cloud solutions to simplify our architecture and enable faster delivery of innovative services, ultimately delivering an enhanced customer experience,” Randeep Sekhon, CTO of Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

Read: Airtel, Nokia sign deal to boost 4G capacity, lay groundwork for 5G

Airtel will now be able to provide its mobile customers with faster and reliable call connectivity due to the network upgrades. The solution has already been deployed to the 22 telecom service areas.

Nokia said that its multi-cloud management solutions, backed with analytics, will also help in simplifying operations for Airtel while allowing the operator to design custom network architectures.

The Sunil Bharti Mittal founded company, Airtel, will utilise commercial off-the-shelf information technology hardware with cloud-based virtual network functions (VNF) from Nokia, which it says will consume less power and space as opposed to traditional 2G/3G circuit boards.

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Airtel will now be ramping down its 3G Network, in order to allow operators to utilise the freed-up spectrums to deploy 4G/LTE services.

Additionally, Nokia’s CloudBand infrastructure software will also be deployed to create new revenue streams through new digital services. CloudBand will help Airtel to adapt its network capacities according to the changing consumption patterns in real-time.

“Nokia’s cloud software solutions will further strengthen Airtel’s solid 5G network foundation and transition to innovative digital solutions that are customer and experience centric,” Bhaskar Gorti, President of Nokia Software and Nokia Chief Digital Officer, said.