Bharti Airtel, India's second-largest service provider, has implemented Ciena's photonic infrastructure to add more capacity to its optic fiber network, to help it meet the growing demand for data in cities.

This upgrade will allow it to deliver a 5G experience to subscribers.

"Rolling out 600G and 800G in India's largest metros - Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata – allows Airtel to fast-track 5G and support high-growth cloud applications while lowering the cost per bit," says the press note issued by Ciena.

Figure 1: Guiding light: India's telcos have to upgrade their optical fiber networks if 5G is to reach its potential.

"Airtel has implemented a self-optimizing network design using an advanced C&L-band infrastructure with Layer 0 control plane with Ciena's 6500 Reconfigurable Line System," says the press release. Airtel would also be using Ciena's Liquid spectrum PinPoint OTDR software analytics to quickly repair fibre-related issues. The operator has also deployed their Wavelogic 5 Extreme coherent optics and Manage, Control and Plan domain controller.

Thick and fast

Overall teledensity (including both wireline and wireless) in urban India stands at 141%, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Out of the total subscriber base, urban India has 91.76% wireline and 54.3% wireless subscribers. There was a significant increase in data consumption during 2020, as businesses and people were forced to use online platforms thanks to the global pandemic. Online gaming and immersive learning has also grown in popularity, adding new pressure to urban networks.

This all means Airtel needs to upgrade its optic fiber network to provide an improved user experience. The company must defend high-value subscribers, most of them in metropolitan cities, from moving to rival networks, especially as the industry moves closer to 5G launch in 2022.

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Indian telcos as a whole will have to upgrade the optical fiber network if they are to add more capacity, and be able to provide 5G services that demand ultra-high-speed and extremely low-latency. The metros are likely to be first to experience 5G. Airtel had recently conducted a 5G trial in 3500Mhz mid-band spectrum in Gurugram in north India. The country is one of the biggest markets for Ciena, and it competes with Huawei, Nokia, Tejas and ECI, among others.

Informal, off-the-record conversations with vendors indicate that the government's policies to discourage Chinese vendors, like Huawei, from operating in the country are helping other vendors gain market share.

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— Gagandeep Kaur, contributing editor, special to Light Reading