Etisalat bets high on 4G in India

NEW DELHI, INDIA: UAE-based Etisalat is optimistic about the potential in the Indian market, despite of its slow-paced operations in the country. Though the telecom major did not bid for 3G and BWA spectrum auction in 2010, but eyes at 4G services as well as specialized telecom services.

The company is partnering with Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson and Huawei for 4G (LTE) deployments in the country and however said that it is ready to introduce this technology in India post assessment of market conditions.

In an exclusive interaction with CIOL, Amaru Chavez, Group CTO, Etisalat said that India is a huge market and the existing 3G operators will help prepare the market for LTE.

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"We see that the existing 3G networks in India are seeing massive traffic and this is already challenging the infrastructure that has been deployed," he said.

Chavez said that their ecosystem partners for LTE deployment are Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson and Huawei. The company is also associated with all the major international players for different technologies and services.

Etisalat expects that the market for mobile data services will mature quickly and demand will grow for LTE services.

"Our deployment in India will depend upon the market conditions but we are ready and able to introduce this technology when the time is right," he added.

The operators who have deployed 3G infrastructure will need to make an upgrade to their systems to provide LTE. However, those operators who have not started with 3G can move directly to deploy LTE if their strategy permits them.