Ericsson in talks with telcos over 4G deployment, capacity expansion
15 Jun 2017
Swedish telecom equipment manufacturer Ericsson today said it was in talks with telcos regarding 4G deployment and capacity expansion. "Yes we are in talks with telecom players regarding 4G deployment," Nitin Bansal, head of products at Ericsson India said.
Amit Bhardwaj, director, head of network product solutions told Gizbot that "currently we have 4G customers like Bharti Airtel, Idea and Vodafone."
According to Bansal, as new apps continue to emerge and usage behaviour evolves, network performance will play an even bigger role in determining smartphone users' loyalty towards their operators.
In fact, mobile broadband experience in India is five times more effective in driving loyalty than tariff structure and pricing,he says. "VoLTE represents a great opportunity for telecom operators in India who are looking to route voice calls over 4G LTE networks enabling lower cost per minute for voice calls as well as free up legacy spectrum bands for re-farming," he added.
GSM was the dominant technology in 2016, accounting for over 70 per cent of total mobile subscriptions. LTE and WCDMA / HSPA technologies together were expected to represent 85 per cent of all Indian subscriptions by 2022 while 5G subscriptions were forecast to become available only in 2022 - representing 0.2 per cent of total mobile subscriptions reaching three million.
There were 23 million cellular IOT connections as of 2016 and by 2022, the figure was estimated to reach 191 million.
Meanwhile, in a new report Ericsson that the recent approval of the Non-Standalone 5G New Radio (NR) that will enable early 5G deployment, will help achieve more than half a billion 5G subscriptions by 2022. Companies such as Verizon had started 5G trials in the US, while Indian telecom operators were also expected to adopt 5G technology this year.
However, before 5G took over, Ericsson sees 4G, or LTE, overtaking GSM by 2018 to become the dominant access technology. This will make 4G the fastest growing mobile technology in history, having already covered 2.5 billion people within five years.'
