Indian mobile market leader by subscribers Bharti Airtel has announced plans to deploy 5,000 new mobile sites and 500km of fibre-optic cabling in Kerala in the year to end-March 2019, the Economic Times reports. The rollout will bring the number of mobile sites the provider operates in the region to 22,000 and its fibre footprint to 6,000km. Commenting on the move, Airtel CEO for Tamil Nadu and Kerala Manoj Murali said: ‘Kerala is an important market for us and we are committed to expanding our high speed data networks to every corner of the state. As part of Project Leap, we will continue to aggressively invest in building a world class future ready network in Kerala.’
Second-placed operator Vodafone India, meanwhile, deployed Finnish vendor Nokia’s Cloud Packet Core technology in Bangalore. According to Nokia, the system provides faster mobile broadband connections, and enhances scale and agility, allowing Vodafone to quickly launch new services. Technology Director for Vodafone India Vishant Vora said of the upgrade: ‘We are thrilled to partner with Nokia and are certain this technology will enable us to scale faster by improving business productivity and network operations. Collaborating with Nokia will also support us in providing a more reliable and superior network experience to our customers. The introduction of a new architecture also enables us to reduce power consumption per customer, in our goal to contribute positively to society.’