Telenor India and Huawei Commercialize World’s First Lean GSM Solution
[Shenzhen, China, February 2, 2016] Telenor India, Telenor's Indian subsidiary, said that it has largely commercialized Huawei's Lean GSM solution, paving the way for mobile broadband (MBB) transformation. The solution has been deployed in 28 cities, including Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Varanasi, to enhance coverage with better spectral efficiency. The deployment modernized 5000 sites in a record 90 days and upgraded sites to be future ready.
Huawei's spectrum efficient Lean GSM solution improves the network capacity by over 30% using the same spectrum resources and provides superior voice and data experience. This solution uses GPS-based synchronization and automated interference management based on real time network measurement. Additional capacity can also be utilized in spectrum refarming for LTE introduction.
Speaking on Telenor India’s achievements, Tanveer Mohammad, chief operating officer, Telenor India Communications, said, “At Telenor we are committed to extend benefits of affordable mobile connectivity to our mass market customers to ride the wave of digitization trends that are empowering people and communities globally. The network modernization will help us achieve our vision of becoming a digital services provider. It will enable us to launch relevant services that will offer more value to our customers.”
Telenor also crossed the first milestone of successfully swapping 5000 sites with state-of-the-art equipment in less than 90 days since the project was launched. This is the fastest upgrade on a live network in the telecom industry with an average 55 sites being swapped in a day. The 5000 swap was completed by Huawei on December 31st and at these sites Telenor is now ready to deliver high speed Internet to its customers in its six operational circles. The company aims to complete the swap of its remaining sites by end of 2016.
“One of the strategic pillars of Telenor’s customer-centric business has been efficient operations. The network upgrade is not just about new technology but also about higher efficiencies. At the sites which have migrated to Lean GSM, we already have 85% less congestion and data throughput has gone up by over 20%. In addition, the new equipment is environment friendly as it consumes almost 30% less power,” said Tanveer.
The company aspires to have 50% of its users accessing the Internet by 2017. At present, 23% of its total subscribers use the Internet. To leverage the increasing demand for data and other Internet-based services, Telenor had last year started modernizing its entire network to make it future ready. With this newly upgraded network, the company will be able to launch any new technology or service to enable the digital lifestyle of its customers.
"Lean GSM is the gateway to affordable mobile broadband,” said Huawei GSM Product Line President Zhang Jiayi. “In the future, we will continue to leverage our strength in the telecom industry thereby providing innovative solutions to support Telenor India’s mobile broadband transformation,” Zhang said.
A better network will enhance the customer experience while derived efficiencies will help Telenor become an affordable voice and Internet services operator. It will also enable the launch of value-added digital services related to financial inclusion, like free insurance, education, health, entertainment and e-commerce to deliver more value to its customers.
Telenor operates one of the largest retail networks in six circles with over 2,000 branded stores and more than 380,000 points of sale. Along with the network expansion, the company will expand its retail footprint this year.
