Ericsson deploys 1 lakh 5G radios for Bharti Airtel

Swedish telecom company Ericsson on Monday said that it has deployed 1,00,000 massive MIMO 5G radios for Bharti Airtel across its 12 circles. In a regulatory filing, Airtel said that it has deployed energy-efficient Ericsson radio system products and solutions from Ericsson's 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) and MINI-LINK (microwave) mobile transport portfolios. "Ericsson has successfully deployed 1,00,000 Massive MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) 5G radios for Bharti Airtel across its 12 circles within a record time of 500+ days," the statement said.

"Ericson is a long-standing partner of Airtel and we are happy to partner them in achieving this milestone of deploying 1,00,000 5G radios across 12 Airtel circles. We have over 65 million customers on our network who are now enjoying blazing fast unlimited 5G data at no additional cost," said Randeep Sekhon, CTO of Bharti Airtel.

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) 5G radio technology helps in faster data transmission using multiple transmitters and receivers. In October 2023, Airtel and Ericsson announced the successful testing of Ericsson's pre-commercial Reduced Capability (RedCap) software on the Airtel 5G network. The testing on the 5G TDD (Time Division Duplex) network represented the first implementation and validation of RedCap in India. Airtel and Ericsson have been partners for 25 years.