Bharti Airtel has entered into a partnership with China Mobile, the world's largest telco, for jointly sourcing devices and equipment as well as developing 4G technology and standards, a development which will help India's biggest telecom operator take on Reliance Jio Infocomm.
Under Tuesday's pact, Bharti Airtel and China Mobile have agreed to cooperate on standards and product development, besides “promoting a robust ecosystem to accelerate the commercialisation of TDD-LTE“.In a joint statement, the two telcos also said they would together buy devices such as Mi-Fi, smartphones, data cards, among other products, all of which can be used to deliver 4G services.
High-speed 4G services have long been the next frontier in India's fast-growing mobile Internet market and the much-anticipated Bharti Airtel-Reliance Jio face-off has been a subject of considerable interest for consumers and industry analysts alike. But five years after both companies paid top dollars to buy broadband wireless spectrum, the pace of rollout has been tardy. Bharti Airtel, which bagged licences to offer 4G services in four circles, and subsequently bought Qualcomm's airwaves in four more, including Delhi and Mumbai, has managed to launch in just five cities, netting a meagre 250,000 customers by end-2014. Reliance Jio, which has a pan-India licence, is yet to launch services. Mittal conceded his company had not been able to break much ground and hoped the tie-up with the Chinese company would give an impetus to Bharti Airtel's 4G plans. “We are into the fifth year of BWA (4G) spectrum. Neither us nor Jio has done really anything big so far. In comparison, China Mobile last year had 100 million customers on TDD-LTE. Now, we need to use their (China Mobile's) scale, power of procurement, understanding of this technology , and their handholding between 3G and 4G,“ he said. Unlike most parts of the world which offer LTE on the 1800 Mhz band, or the FDD-LTE technology standard, India and China offer 4G services using TDD-LTE mobile technology ,a standard which uses airwaves in the 2300 Mhz band which is considered inefficient as it has a short range and therefore needs more telecom towers to set up a network.
Further development in technology and standards will help both the companies. But for now, China has a far more developed TDD-LTE ecosystem.
The latest tieup gives Bharti Airtel and China Mobile immense benefits of economies of scale to buy equipment and devices at very low prices, said industry trackers and analysts.
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