Airtel likely to contract multiple vendors for LTE deployment?

Indian service provider Bharti Airtel is close on signing LTE deals for offering 4G services in four circles. Airtel is rumored be ready to offer contracts to four different vendors for each of the circle.

While ZTE and Huawei are frontrunners for bagging the contract in Kolkata and Karnataka , respectively, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens could get the deal for Punjab and Maharashtra respectively. Though none of the players confirmed the deal, insiders said that talks had reached advanced stage.

Bharti had won broadband spectrum in the four circles for Rs 3,314 crore during the auctions held last year. Reliance Industries, Qualcomm, Tikona, Augere and Aircel are the players which have broadband spectrum in various circles but none of them have started services.

Augere, which has spectrum in Madhya Pradesh circle, has announced a deal with Ericsson for equipment supply and launch of services by second quarter of 2012.

source: LteWorld