Vodafone Idea contracts Nokia for LTE expansion

India’s Vodafone Idea has awarded Nokia a contract to improve the operator’s LTE coverage and capacity.

Under the contract, Nokia will provide Single RAN Advanced, massive MIMO and small cell technology across multiple Indian telecoms circles to support the operator’s network consolidation and modernization program.

The small cell deployment will help improve both indoor and outdoor coverage and capacity in the circles. Vodafone Idea will also adopt dynamic spectrum sharing technology to make the most productive use of the converged company’s spectrum.

“Vodafone Idea is undertaking the world’s biggest telecom network integration in India [following the merger between Vodafone India and Idea Cellular], and creating India’s most advanced, secure and cost-efficient network,” Vodafone Idea CTO Vishant Vora said.

“Extensive use of UBRs, dynamic spectrum sharing, massive MIMO and HetNets are key to our plan in this integration exercise, and we are very happy to partner with Nokia to deploy these futuristic, next generation technologies to prepare a future-proof network for the digital era.”

Last month Vodafone Idea also contracted Ericsson to deploy LTE equipment for the network integration program, including radio systems and transport equipment from Ericsson’s 5G-ready Ericsson Radio System portfolio.