Announcing its first VoLTE deal, Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson today said that it will enable HD VoLTE services for Bharti Airtel’s customers, helping the now second-largest telecom company in India move closer to launching 5G services.

Under the deal, Bharti Airtel will use Ericsson’s Cloud VoLTE solutions. Expected to cater to all India customers, the services are expected to help mobile services and smartwatches customers of Airtel, Ericsson said in an event. Ericsson expects 5G services in India by 2020, in line with the government vision of 5G roll-out.

However, this is not an exclusive deal either on the part of Bharti Airtel or Ericsson.

“We have Nokia as existing vendor and Ericsson comes as the second vendor. We have multiple vendors and whenever there is growth, we move to another vendor,” Airtel CTO said at an event. The same was reiterated by Ericsson’s Senior Manager who said, “Just like Airtel said that there are other partners, we do as well,” upon being asked the exclusivity of the deal. The company denied discussing the deal size.

“Ericsson is our key partner and has been our first partner since Ericsson started its services in India… We believe VoLTE will be the only voice bearer in the future,” Randeep Sekhon, CTO, Bharti Airtel said on the occasion.

Bharti Airtel is already running VoLTE in networks. Nitin Bansal, Head of Ericsson India and Head of Network Solutions, Market Area South-East Asia, Oceania and India, also said that the company is expecting 780 million VoLTE subscribers in India by 2023 citing an Ericsson Mobility Report of 2018.

Meanwhile, Ericsson executives refused to comment on the reports that it may have to return Rs 580 crore in dues that it recently recovered from Reliance Communications, should the Anil Ambani-company move for insolvency proceedings. When asked what would be Ericsson’s next step regarding the RCom case, Ericsson India head Nitin Bansal refused to comment stating that the matter is sub judice.

Earlier, Ericsson had won Rs 580 crore dues from RCom after a legal battle. However, as financial creditors get priority in insolvency proceedings, Ericsson may have to return the money it had recovered, the NCLAT (National Company Law Appellate Tribunal) said earlier this week.