Ericsson to manage Bharti Airtel’s pan-India network under new multi-year contract

Bharti Airtel on Monday signed a multi-year Network Operations Center (NOC) Managed Services agreement with Ericsson. Under the deal, Ericsson will take charge of managing Airtel’s network operations across India, covering 4G, 5G NSA and SA, Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), Private Networks, and Network Slicing.

"This partnership will see Ericsson manage Airtel’s pan-India network through its state-of-the-art NOC while scaling FWA and Network Slicing across the country," the company said in an exchange filing.

As of 11:00 AM today, shares of Bharti Airtel Ltd were trading at ₹1,866.00, down ₹4.20 or 0.22%.

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Randeep Sekhon, CTO of Bharti Airtel, said, “We are excited to enhance our strong collaboration with Ericsson as we pursue our goal of creating a future-ready network that delivers an exceptional experience for our customers. We believe that these innovative technologies will empower us to meet the growing data demands of consumers in a digitally connected India.”

Andres Vicente, Head of Market Area Southeast Asia, Oceania and India at Ericsson, commented, “This milestone agreement with Bharti Airtel reinforces our commitment to helping Airtel deliver the best possible experience for its customers. By leveraging Intent-Based NOC Operations, we will enable Airtel to unlock wider service diversification to meet customer needs, thereby enabling new revenue opportunities for Airtel.”

The contract builds on a relationship that spans over 25 years and follows Airtel and Ericsson’s recent collaboration on 5G Core technology to support the company’s 5G rollout.