Bharti Airtel, the country’s second largest telecom manufacturer, has partnered with US chipset maker Qualcomm to rollout the 5G service in India. Regarding this partnership, Airtel says it will use Qualcomm’s 5G RAN platform to rollout the virtualized and open 5G network. With this partnership, the arrival of the 5G service in India will get an acceleration.

Airtel said in a press release, “As a board member of the O-RAN Alliance, it is committed to implementing the country’s O-RAN vision. It has also been said that O-RAN’s flexible and scalable architecture will create new opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses to make 5G networks a stronger player.”

“In addition, Airtel and Qualcomm Technologies will collaborate to enable multiple use cases, including 5G fixed wireless (CSS) designed to provide Gigabit-enabled broadband connectivity in homes and businesses,” the company said.

The partnership between Airtel and Qualcomm is expected to allow the rapid rollout of broadband services across the country in a ‘cost-effective and expeditious manner.’ That is, after this agreement, the 5G service will be rolled out nationwide at a fast pace. A recently Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report revealed that Airtel added 4.05 million wireless subscribers in December 2020. Talking about monthly subscribers, the company still stands in the first place.

According to a report, Reliance Jio added only 479,000 wireless subscribers. Airtel has beaten Jio in the case of visitor location register i.e. VRL subscribers. Airtel has consistently added more subscribers than any other telecom company. 31 December 2020 Airtel has added 4.05 million wireless subscribers to its total wireless subscribers base of 4.08.7 million. Reliance Jio lagged behind with 478,917 customers added in December. However, Jio still has a maximum market share of 35,43 percent.