New Delhi, Oct 16 (IANS): Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson on Wednesday signed a deal with Bharti Airtel to deploy its 5G-ready Cloud packet core in the domestic telecom major's network in the country.

The deployment would enhance capacity in Airtel's network and enable it to address the rapidly-growing demand for high-speed data services, Ericsson said in a statement.

"The Indian telecom market is witnessing massive surge in data usage. To address this demand and evolving consumption patterns, we are investing in innovative technologies and solutions to enable a superlative data experience for our customers in the country," said Randeep Sekhon, Chief Technology Officer, Bharti Airtel.

"Ericsson is one of our key network partners and this deployment will help us enhance our packet core network which will not just scale up data capacity, but also make us edge cloud ready," Sekhon added.

The deployment will consist of solutions like Ericsson virtual Evolved Packet Gateway (vEPG) that follow European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) standards.

The solution, which is evolved with edge computing and container management capabilities, optimises the uptake of mobile broadband and provides support for network slicing and advanced Internet of Things (IoT) and enterprise services.

"The deployment of these technologies will help Airtel in meeting the rapidly evolving demands of customers and also enable swift deployment of new use cases and innovative services for SMEs and IoT," said Nunzio Mirtillo, Head of Ericsson South East Asia, Oceania and India.

Ericsson Cloud packet core is built on its virtual evolved packet core (EPC) applications.