Bharti Airtel on Tuesday has announced a strategic collaboration with China Mobile to jointly foster the growth of 4G LTE ecosystem and to promote development of affordable LTE devices.
Under the collaboration, the two companies will work towards the growth of the LTE ecosystem and evolving mobile technology standards.
Airtel and China Mobile will also work towards shaping up a joint strategy for procurement of devices that include Mifi, smart phones, data cards, LTE CPEs and USIM, Bharti Airtel said.
China Mobile and Airtel plan to share relevant network as well as product knowledge (specifically for new technologies like 4G), best practices and technical learnings to enable delivery of world-class affordable services to customers. Airtel and China Mobile will also work together for development of relevant technical standards and inter-operability testing, Bharti said.
As founders of Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI), China Mobile and Airtel will also cooperate on standards and products development, and promoting a robust ecosystem to accelerate the commercialization of TD-LTE and evolving 4.5G/ 5G technologies, Bharti said. Both companies will work together for understanding and sharing testing and validation practices (including network equipment, features and new releases etc) and also jointly conduct proof of concepts as well as trials.
“India and China account for nearly third of all the mobile subscribers globally and this partnership will provide a major platform for development and deployment of 4G and future mobile technology standards as both countries enter a phase of explosive data led growth.
“We are confident that the exchange of best practices and innovations will help in delivering affordable high speed mobile internet to the masses and contribute to the Indian Government’s ‘Digital India’ vision,” Sunil Bharti Mittal said.
