India's Bharti Airtel has announced that it has chosen ZTE to provide the networking hardware for its forthcoming LTE network in India, and reports say that its launch could happen as soon as this month. CEO Sanjay Kapoor says the company is set to launch LTE first in Kolkata, expanding to Maharashtra, Punjab, and Karnataka later on. It will be the first TD-LTE 4G service for the country.

Bharti Airtel is utilizing TD-LTE instead of the FDD-LTE used in the US, a decision that will help with spectrum and also happens to be same same type of LTE used by China Mobile and Clearwire. The latter company actually may take Bharti Airtel's TD-LTE launch as good news, as it apparently means that the potential licensing delays in China won't affect 4G launches outside the country.

Thanks Kalpesh!