Indian telecommunications major Bharti Airtel has tied up with Huawei Telecommunications India to deploy Airtel's Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) in Bengaluru.
The company said the Massive MIMO solution can potentially increase spectrum efficiency by five to seven times, enhancing intensive coverage and user experience.
Deployed as part of Airtel’s ongoing network transformation program Project Leap, the Massive technology will expand existing network capacity by five to seven times using the existing spectrum, thereby improving spectral efficiency. Airtel said in a statement that customers will now be able to experience two to three superfast speeds on the existing 4G network.
"As India goes digital, there is an unprecedented rise in demand for higher network speeds to feed data hungry mobile applications. Massive MIMO is the best technology to boost spectrum efficiency and is one of the key solutions for Huawei's 4.5G/5G evolution," Huawei said in a statement.
Massive MIMO is a key enabler and foundation for technology revolutions to come. It is a pre-5G technology that will make the network future ready for meeting the data demand that is coming from digital revolution and data explosion in India.
Abhay Savargaonkar, Director - Networks, Bharti Airtel, said: "India is fast striding towards exponential and unprecedented data growth. Our latest deployment of Massive MIMO will hep us serve this demand and build a future ready network. We have partnered Huawei for the deployment of our latest technological advancement - Massive MIMO, the first step towards 5G.
The statement said Huawei's Massive MIMO features an active antenna unit design that integrates radio and antenna components for reliability and ease of project implementation.
According to the company, the solution adopts large-scale antenna arrays that are able to control the width and tilt, both vertical and horizontal, for 3D beamforming.
"This feature is complemented by channel estimation and advanced algorithms to allow Massive MIMO to empower several terminals to reuse time-frequency resources for improved network capacity," it added.
"Huawei's Massive MIMO can greatly improve 4G network spectral efficiency and help effectively handle any capacity challenges encountered during rapid mobile development, which India is experiencing at the moment," said Jay Chen, Chief Executive of Huawei India.
"This partnership with Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecom services provider, will help steer towards an important direction for the further development and future of 5G evolution in the country," Chen added.