Airtel And Vodafone-Idea Might Not Use Chinese Vendors In Their Projects

Airtel and Vodafone-Idea are reportedly planning to boycott Chinese vendors for their new or upcoming projects. This means that both telecom operators are now following Reliance Jio as the latter does not depend on Chinese vendors like ZTE and Huawei for the trials and network deployment. In fact, Jio is known as a clean telco.

Despite the fact that both operators are not awarding any new contract to these vendors, they are still working with them for their ongoing project, reports ET Telecom. The report highlighted that the US and European companies are not ok or comfortable with Chinese vendors due to data theft issues. So now, Indian telecom players are also looking for Nokia, Ericsson, Cisco, and Ciena.

"Why Indian telcos specifically Airtel is changing Chinese vendors, especially Huawei because they are worried about their supply chain. Telcos can't plan their network strategy with no clarity on the future of the vendor in case of fresh embargos," sources close to the development was quoted by the newspaper.

In fact, the government has asked Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited to use only domestic vendors for deploying the 4G and 5G networks in the country. Notably, the company is using 44. 4 percent of equipment from ZTE and 9.0 percent from Huawei.

Airtel And Vodafone-Idea Join Hands With Other Vendors

This development comes after Airtel extended its partnership with Ericsson to deploy 5G-ready radio and transport solutions in the country. Under this partnership, Ericsson will enhance the network capacity of the telecom operator. Similarly, Vodafone-Idea announced that its network is also ready for 5G trials in India.

"Our network is very much 5G-ready. When the 5G auction takes place, we will be able to launch 5G. However, there is a need to develop India 5G use cases. India is unique and some global use cases might not be relevant," Vodafone Idea MD and CEO RavinderTakkar said.