Bharti Airtel deploys Open vRAN with Altiostar

TEWKSBURY, Mass., April 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Altiostar today announced that Bharti Airtel ("Airtel"), India's largest integrated telecommunications services provider, has deployed Altiostar's open virtual radio access network (vRAN) solution.

With its headquarters in New Delhi and operations spread across South Asia and Africa, Bharti Airtel is first operator in India to deploy vRAN-based 4G network, leveraging Altiostar's open vRAN solution across multiple major cities in India. The solution has 5G ready software, and would provide seamless evolution to 5G using the same architecture.

The RAN constitutes bulk of the capital and operating costs for mobile network operators. By partnering with Altiostar's Open vRAN software, Bharti Airtel can facilitate further innovation and cost efficiencies in their radio networks. With cloud-based open vRAN technologies being the cornerstone for network slicing, Bharti Airtel is also setting the foundation for rolling out 5G services, applications and multiple use cases. Altiostar's Open vRAN solution is an innovative architecture and technology for maximizing the hardware efficiency, performance and network agility for next generation 5G networks.

Bharti Airtel has taken an active role in Open vRAN standardization efforts through participation and leadership in both the O-RAN alliance and Facebook's Telecom Infra Project (TIP).

"As a customer obsessed brand, we at Airtel are consistently strengthening our network architecture with innovative technology break-through. An Open vRAN is one such solution which is essential for the deployment of next-generation 4G and 5G technologies efficiently as we take mobile broadband to the masses," said Randeep Sekhon, CTO - Bharti Airtel. "We look forward to closely working with Altiostar for our vRAN deployment which is a significant aspect of our network strategy."

"Altiostar is a leader in open virtualized radio access solutions. This collaboration with Bharti Airtel is exciting because the size and breadth of its network will demonstrate the innovation and the disruption that open vRAN solutions are bringing to the industry," said Ashraf Dahod, President and CEO, Altiostar. "India is a mobile-first market that leads the world in mobile data and video consumption and by deploying Altiostar open vRAN solution, Bharti Airtel can evolve its network to maintain its leadership and continue its mission to provide customers with exceptional experiences."

Altiostar vRAN Software

Altiostar's vRAN implements an innovative functional split that allows baseband functions to run as virtual network functions (VNFs) on Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware thereby bringing the benefits of cloud infrastructure such as modularity, redundancy, resource pooling, scalability, resiliency, security and auto-recovery into radio access networks.

Altiostar's Open vRAN solution includes software, interfaces to the hardware, management capabilities, automation and API needed for any operator to introduce this innovative technology into their network.

About Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 18 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 3 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed home broadband, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G, 4G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 418 million customers across its operations at the end of December 2019. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com

About Altiostar
Altiostar provides 4G and 5G virtualized RAN software solution that supports open interfaces and disaggregates the hardware from the software to build an open and secure multi-vendor web-scale network.  This solution supports macro and small cells, indoor and outdoor, enabling interference management, carrier aggregation and dual reception to improve the efficiency of the network and enhances the Quality of Experience for the user while providing broadband speeds. Operators can add intelligence, quickly adapt the software for different services and automate operations to rapidly scale the network.

SOURCE Altiostar