Telecom equipment manufacturer Ericsson today said it has bagged a deal with Bharti Airtel for 4G (fourth generation) equipment.
According to sources, the Swedish equipment major is also in talks with some other major telcos for providing infrastructure support for 4G rollout, though the company remained tight lipped about it at the event held today.
As far as 4G is concerned, only Reliance Jio Infocomm has a pan-India license to offer 4G on the 2300 Mhz band (TDD-LTE standard), but it hasn’t launched services so far and plans to do a pilot run on Dhirubhai Ambani’s birth anniversary this year. On the other hand, Bharti Airtel and Aircel have launched services in a few cities on that band.
The company also released a white paper titled – “India 2020: Bringing the Networked Society to Life”. According to the whitepaper, heterogeneous networks with a mix of macro cell sites, small cells and Wi-Fi hotspots will be fundamental to manage coverage, capacity and quality of performance for users. Secondly, smartphone prices are expected to fall by 40-50% over the next three years. As a result, the number of subscribers able to afford smartphones and services are expected to reach over 700 million by 2020, up from 110 million in 2013. The number of mobile broadband subscribers is expected to grow from 70 million in 2013 to 600 million subscribers in 2020, with 20% of the mobile broadband subscriptions expected to be 4G in 2020.
The survey further stated that the increasing number of subscribers, growing affordability of smartphones, and government initiatives such as the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) will drive internet connectivity in India. User demand for internet access will drive WCDMA/HSPA population coverage from 20% in 2013 to 90% in 2020. Ericsson estimates that the estimated blended data usage per subscriber in 2020 will be 600-850 MB.
Ajay Gupta, Vice President and Head of Strategy & Marketing at Ericsson India, said “Mobile broadband will be the platform on which the ‘Digital India’ vision can be delivered. For this we will need the release of additional spectrum in the relevant bands. This will contribute to affordability of services, and harmonisation of spectrum will allow a lower-cost device ecosystem to evolve. Operators in India have far less spectrum than their peers globally with high mobile broadband penetration. Spectrum will play a key role in driving mobile broadband growth in India in the long run, and will be an increasingly important driver of capacity, user experience, and quality.”