Nokia, Ciena providing gear for Jio’s major 4G rollout

Nokia and Ciena have both detailed their roles in providing equipment for disruptive Indian newcomer Reliance Jio Infocomm’s greenfield pan-India 4G rollout.

Reliance Jio finally launched LTE services for the public in September last year, and has signed on 100 million new users in just 170 days due to its aggressive strategy of initially offering all services for free.

Nokia announced that its optical deployment for Jio covers over 90,000km across India, making it one of the biggest 100G deployments in the world.

The vendor provided switches with 100G DWDM capabilities as well as generalized MPLS intelligence to support capacity management and restoration

“In only 170 days, Jio has signed on 100 million new users. With growth rates of this magnitude we had to ensure we deployed the highest capacity, most resilient transport network to build out the 4G network,” Reliance Jio president Jyotindra Thacker commented.

“Nokia’s next-generation DWDM portfolio provides the ability to scale easily as Jio continues to expand the network to reach the underserved areas of India with digital services in key areas such as communication, education, healthcare, payments and multi-media entertainment.”

Ciena meanwhile deployed multi-terabit converged packet optical technology for Jio’s 4G network core, operating at speeds of up to 200Gbps.

The Ciena packet optical platforms use Ciena’s WaveLogic coherent technology for the core network, which connects all major cities of India.

• “With Ciena we are not only able to provide robust scalability to offer new levels of data consumption, which is already 8 to 10 times above market levels, but also a supreme level of confidence in our network’s reliability and level of service that stands out in our marketplace,” Thacker said.
• “Ciena’s coherent technological offerings and proven control plane technology is helping to make us the fastest growing 4G network in the world.”