Bharti Airtel awarded a multi-year, multi-billion extension agreement to Nokia to expand 5G coverage to key areas and modernise its 4G footprint, preparing for the rollout of 5G-Advanced equipment.

In a statement, the vendor noted it will deploy equipment from its 5G AirScale portfolio, covering base stations, baseband units and the latest generation of Massive MIMO radios.

Airtel vice chair and MD Gopal Vittal explained the partnership with Nokia will “future-proof our network infrastructure”, with equipment that will be eco-friendly to minimise the environmental impact.

In October 2023, Airtel stated its 5G service reached all districts, with 50 million subscribers across the country.

Rival Vodafone Idea reached a deal in September to source $3.6 billion-worth of network equipment from Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung over the next three years.

India is one of the fastest growing 5G markets in the world, with 175.4 million connections at end-September compared with 101 million at the same point of 2023, data from GSMA Intelligence shows.