Bharti Airtel to Offer Voice Services to LTE Customers Via GSM

India's Bharti Airtel will soon launch voice services for its TD-LTE customers in Pune, through its existing GSM network.

The operator has selected Nokia Siemens Networks to deploy a Circuit Switched FallBack (CSFB) voice solution in the operator's live TD-LTE network in the city. With CSFB, the network can transfer customers to GSM platform to make and receive voice calls and access voicemails while retaining their LTE based mobile data connection.

Jagbir Singh, CTO & Director - Network Services Group, Bharti Airtel, said, "Bharti Airtel has the advantage of pan-India GSM and 3G networks and with the deployment of cutting edge CSFB functionality, we will have the flexibility of using either or both the networks to support voice services on our TD-LTE platform."

Nokia Siemens Networks has previously delivered CSFB to more than 30 customers across the globe.