Airtel looks to be aatmanirbhar in 5G via R&D, tie-ups with companies | Economic Times

New Delhi: Bharti Airtel is developing 5G network technologies in India through own R&D and in collaboration with local, US and Japanese firms, underlining a dramatic shift in the mobile phone operator’s strategy, which will see it develop its own intellectual property rights (IPR), as against depending on third-party equipment vendors. A top executive told ET that Airtel is not just developing technology for 5G, home broadband, Internet of Things (IoT) and other wireline products in India, but is also aiming to locally produce the equipment through contract manufacturers like US's Flex and India’s Tejas Networks. 78780160“We want to work with technology partners to co-develop India specific hardware and software products. Easy to deploy in India and also export to similar markets. The IPR of design of these products will be with Airtel, which we can offer to other telcos,” the executive said.A complete local 5G ecosystem and own capability to develop telecom gear will allow Airtel to have a better control over the supply chain and reduce overall network deployment costs by looking beyond traditional vendors that charge premium for their products and technology, analysts said. Airtel is currently in the process of signing commercial pacts with its partners for its 5G ecosystem, the executive said. This comes at a time when bitter rival Reliance Jio has said it is developing its own end-to-end 5G technology, and has highlighted its ‘Make in India’ credentials. While Jio has said it wants to first deploy and scale up in India, and then take its technology to other telcos in the markets of Africa, West Asia and Eastern Europe, the Airtel executive said the telco also plans to initially take its 5G and other network technologies to markets like Africa, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka through its own and partner operations, and plans to offer to other telcos going forward.The company though believes India can wait until 2022 for 5G, by which time the ecosystem, including handsets and India-specific use cases, will be more developed. The government is planning to hold spectrum auctions sometime in 2021.Under its Make in India strategy, Airtel is planning to bring a large ecosystem of partners including US’s Mavenir, Xilinx and Altiostar (part owned by Japan’s Rakuten), Japan’s NEC and Taiwan’s Sercom that will help the telco develop equipment using OpenRAN technology.