Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecom operator, plans to rule out Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE in its upcoming 5G trials in favor of European suppliers, according to the ETTelecom.
The report said Bharti Airtel will soon submit new applications to work with Nokia and Ericsson in 5G trials in cities where it previously filed to partner with Huawei and ZTE.
This "development" will allow the Department of Telecom (DOT) to get out of a "tricky situation" and roll out trial 5G spectrum to telecom operators without having to decide on Chinese vendors, the report said.
Indian group wants to bar Huawei, ZTE from participating in the country's 5G deployment
Previously, Huawei and ZTE had been Bharti Airtel's 4G providers in Kolkata and Bangalore.
DoT officials are in a fix in the absence of a formal stance of the government on whether to allow Chinese equipment makers for 5G trials, and thus have not been able to progress on trial spectrum allocation, the report said.
