Bharti Airtel has opted to partner with Ericsson for the deployment, rather than Nokia Siemens, with which it announced a multi-market African partnership in October last year.Ericsson will manage Airtel’s Rwandan network from end-to-end, including providing OSS/BSS solutions and managed services.Last year the Indian-headquartered carrier struck a partnership with NSN to expand, plan and operate its mobile networks in Madagascar, Malawi, Congo Brazzaville, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.Airtel said that it took just 83 days to build its new network from scratch, claiming it represents the fastest Greenfield launch in history of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Indian operator has also pledged to invest $100m over the next three years, taking its reach in Africa to 17 markets.
