Vodafone Idea finalising key network deals

Vodafone Idea, India's largest telecom operator, may close new commercial contracts for its pan-India radio network with Nokia, Ericsson, and Huawei. Nokia is set to get eleven circles, while Sweden's Ericsson seven and China's Huawei will get four-five circles. Once the radio networks contracts are awarded, Vodafone Idea may take another month to award new contracts for core network under phase two. Vodafone Idea has been running requests for proposals (RFPs) for its pan-India network and negotiating new contracts for some time. The earlier plan was to close these contracts in September, but it got pushed due to the delay for the merger approval. Vodafone Idea is most likely to keep one vendor per telecom circle. The company has given requirement to vendors for additional sites required in each circle under their expansion plan. Vodafone Idea has already been commercially deploying pre-5G technology massive mimo and carrier aggregation in India, besides initiating virtualisation of its core networks on a larger scale. Nokia is currently present in 10 circles with Vodafone and five circles with Idea Cellular, while Ericsson has five circles with Vodafone and eight circles with Idea. Huawei has three circles with Vodafone and four circles with Idea.