Nokia and telecom operator Bharti Airtel have entered into a partnership to work on 5G technology standards, and management of connected devices via the Internet of Things (IoT), reports the Mint. As a part of the agreement, Nokia and Airtel will collaborate on technologies to drive 5G network growth, however, no financial or operational details of the partnership have been provided. Note that Airtel had signed a separate deal with Nokia last year for the deployment of 4G networks. In total, Nokia deployed its 4G FDD-LTE & TD-LTE technology across 9 circles of Bharti Airtel’s operations in India including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rest of Bengal, Odisha, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Kerala and UP East. In January 2015, Nokia had also bagged FDD-LTE and TD-LTE network deployment contract for Airtel in 6 circles under the 1800 MHz band and on the 2300 MHz band. Services from Nokia also included Cloud-ready network management system, NetAct, for network monitoring and optimization of the LTE network. Nokia would also provide maintenance services and other networking services including network integration and network planning and optimization. Interestingly, Nokia was also to sign a similar deal with BSNL, for the development in 5G and IoT and help BSNL develop a framework for future networks. It is important to note that BSNL has no 4G operations in the country. The partnership would involve 5G demonstrations, use case development benefits, launching workshops etc. However, the financial or operations details of this deal aren't too clear either. Note that Reliance Jio…
