The new collaboration seeks to boost the energy efficiency of Airtel’s 4G/5G radio access network
Indian operator Bharti Airtel and Finnish vendor Nokia announced a partnership under the “Green 5G” initiative, aimed at implementing energy-efficient technologies and practices across Airtel’s mobile network. In a release, Airtel noted that the new collaboration seeks to boost the energy efficiency of Airtel’s 4G/5G radio access network (RAN) by utilizing technologies such as AI/ML, advanced software tools and other solutions.
The initiative is chiefly aimed at enhancing energy efficiency during both peak and off-peak hours, with an estimated reduction of 143,413 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually from Airtel’s network.
Randeep Sekhon, CTO of Bharti Airtel, said: “In response to the surging demand for data, mobile networks across India have rapidly expanded, particularly with the rollout of 5G technology. This partnership allows us to leverage innovative solutions that deliver substantial energy savings, enabling us to significantly reduce our carbon footprint and further our environmental objectives in alignment with our business strategy.”
“Nokia has committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions globally by 2040. Our innovative technologies will not only enhance the overall performance of communications networks but also significantly help reduce their energy consumption, contributing to the energy efficiency targets of our customers,” said Tarun Chhabra, head of mobile networks at Nokia India.
Key components of the initiative include:
- Zero-traffic, zero-watt operation: This feature minimizes the power consumption of the radio network during periods of no traffic, ensuring efficient energy management.
- AI/ML-enhanced energy-saving software: The partners are leveraging AI and machine learning algorithms to automate and optimize the energy-saving capabilities of Airtel’s 4G and 5G networks.
- Digital design for optimized energy use: Airtel and Nokia are trialing advanced digital design tools that optimize cell configurations to reduce transmitted power, which helps lower the CO2 footprint and energy costs without affecting network performance.
- ReefShark System-on-Chip (SoC): The latest SoC technology from Nokia dynamically adjusts internal resources based on traffic demands, contributing to a 15% reduction in energy consumption.
Airtel, Nokia and MediaTek had recently announced the successful completion of trials combining Time Division Duplex (TDD) and Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) mid-band spectrum on a time basis utilizing the latest generation chipset. The Indian carrier said that the trial, aimed at maximizing the uplink performance, was conducted at Airtel’s tech lab and achieved uplink speeds of 300 Mbps.
The trial enhanced upload speeds by aggregating frequency bands of 3.5 Ghz (n78) and 2.1 Ghz (n1), which according to Airtel, significantly improves the uplink performance for demanding use cases by dynamically switching the uplink transmission across two carriers in TDD and FDD spectrum more efficiently.
For this trial, Airtel used equipment from Nokia’s next-generation 5G AirScale radio portfolio while MediaTek provided its Dimensity 5G mobile platform as the user equipment.
The telco added that use cases such as video conferencing, live streaming and large file uploads will benefit from this innovation.
In July, Nokia said it has successfully completed its first 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) cloud RAN trial with Bharti Airtel. The trial took place in an over-the-air environment utilizing 3.5 GHz spectrum for 5G and 2.1 GHz for 4G. Nokia noted that data calls were successfully performed with commercial user devices over Airtel’s commercial network achieving a throughput of over 1.2 Gbps.
Airtel is currently using equipment from Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung to provide 5G services.