Bharti Airtel is set to enhance its national network by deploying Nokia’s next-generation optical transport network, offering increased capacity, heightened reliability, and reduced costs. This collaboration aims to elevate the quality of services for Airtel’s customers. The partnership involves the implementation of Nokia’s 1830 PSS-x OTN switches in Airtel’s National Long-Distance Network, connecting major cities throughout India.
Amidst the surge in demand for communication services, driven by the rollout of 5G networks and the expanding need for broadband connectivity across the country, Communication Service Providers (CSPs) face escalating requirements. This includes the need for enhanced backhaul transport to support denser 5G mobile networks, wholesale connectivity for emerging segments like smart grids, datacenter interconnect (DCI), and other business services.
The official release highlights, “To address exponential growth in traffic demand, transport networks need to be upgraded to increase overall transport capacity and bandwidth efficiency using high capacity OTN switching and utilising additional spectrum, including the L-band wavelengths of the fiber.”
Nokia’s OTN solution will facilitate the seamless upgrade of Bharti Airtel’s legacy transport switching infrastructure across its extensive pan-Indian network footprint. This upgrade is strategically aligned with the goal of accommodating the rising demands of new transport network traffic while enhancing overall performance and reliability.
The increased capacity resulting from this collaboration positions Bharti Airtel to potentially deliver faster and more reliable broadband services. This capacity upgrade is poised to meet the surging bandwidth requirements fueled by the enterprise and hyper-scaler segments, preparing the network for the emergence of new use cases.
