Vodafone Idea, the third-largest private telecom operator in India, is going to be leveraging the DWMD solution from Nokia in its access layer to upgrade the current network to 5G to meet the future service capacity and reliability needs. Nokia’s scalable and compact DWDM solution will enable Vi to optimise the fiber resources while ensuring 100G capacity with an option to upgrade in the future to 200G capacity and beyond in the access network.
Vodafone Idea to Leverage Nokia Product for Reducing TCO of 5G Network
Vodafone Idea will be using the Nokia’s 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS), which will enable cost-efficient and sustainable enhancement of network capacity by minimising the operational expenditure with reduced carbon footprint and power consumption. With Nokia’s solution, the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the network for Vi will go down significantly. This will help the company in generating a better return on investment (ROI) while ensuring the network capacity improves to meet future demands. Jagbir Singh, CTO (Chief Technology Officer), Vodafone Idea, said the company is focused on forging long-term partnerships with ecosystem players as the telco prepares for 5G. This will enable the telco to offer a superior quality network and services to its enterprises and consumers. Prashant Ramesh Malkani, Head of Vodafone Idea CBT at Nokia, said the field-proven Nokia 1830 PSS solution would allow Vi to address the growing capacity demand and provide best-in-class network services to customers. Nokia has also been working with Vodafone Idea in the 5G trials for months now. Vi had partnered with both Nokia and Ericsson for 5G trials. With Nokia, the company is working on specific use cases in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Further, the technology equipment provider is also helping the telco with its 4G networks. A few months back, there were reports which said Nokia would be swapping Huawei’s 4G gear from Vi’s networks in the national capital. Whether that really happened or not wasn’t confirmed by either of the companies.