Airtel renews pan-India managed services partnership with Ericsson

Bharti Airtel has renewed its agreement with Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson to manage pan-India network operations, the companies said in a joint statement.

Under the agreement, Ericsson will also manage Airtel's network operations centre and field maintenance activities across India.

"The three-year deal will see Airtel launching Ericsson Operation Engine during 2020. Ericsson will deploy the latest automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to enhance Airtel's mobile network performance and customer experience," the statement said.

Ericsson has been providing telecom network equipment and services for 2G, 3G, 4G, and recently both the companies started running 5G trials.

"We are pleased to strengthen our deep partnership with Ericsson as part of our vision to build a future ready network that enables world-class experience for our customers," Bharti Airtel Chief Operating Officer Randeep Sekhon said.

Ericsson said it has contracts to handle over 300 networks globally for managing and operating multi-vendor and multi-technology networks.

"This agreement demonstrates the continued confidence in our products and end-to-end solutions in Bharti Airtel's network and IT operations. We will continue to develop data-driven insights to deliver enhanced performance focused on end-user experience," Ericsson's head for South East Asia, Oceania and India, Nunzio Mirtillo said.