Launches the ‘India with Airtel’ Partnership Program at the PTC ’08 in Hawaii
Carriers offered the options of simple models for starting services to India or working jointly with Airtel to develop new services and offering services from the Airtel portfolio
Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s leading integrated telecom conglomerate today announced the launch of the ‘India with Airtel’ – a strategic partnership program at the PTC ’08 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The program focuses on providing leading international carriers an opportunity to partner with Airtel for providing a variety of telecom services in India like managed data & Internet services, domestic connectivity, International Circuits, managed customized integrated solutions and satellite services etc. Under this initiative, Airtel is offering carriers with business interests in India, multiple partnership models ranging from simple interconnects to joint development of new products. Carriers can leverage Airtel’s leadership position in the Indian market to address their requirements and that of their customers in India, jointly with Airtel.
Announcing the launch of the program, David Nishball, President, Enterprise Services, Airtel said, “This program will help carrier partners utilize our extensive domestic and international network for their benefit. These partners can offer various services from Airtel’s comprehensive portfolio to accomplish their India business strategy. We also propose to work jointly with these carrier partners to develop a go-to-market strategy. This program highlights how Airtel seeks to develop the industry by working with other partners to achieve successful results in the Indian telecom market.”
The program aims to help carriers across all carrier segments through different partnership models. There are options for India connectivity aimed at carriers taking license in India and building their networks. Options are also available, for carriers with a presence in their home territory but having no network to India, to connect to the Airtel global network. Another option is aimed at carriers with international presence and partial networks to build networks jointly with Airtel. There is also an option for integrated players which need to expand their network to India to add Airtel’s services to their portfolio as White Label Services.
The ‘India with Airtel’ partnership program offers carriers a host of options of simple plug and play models to initiate or enhance their capabilities to India. Carriers also have options of utilizing either their existing network to India or for building complete new network and services to India using Airtel’s global capabilities. The program encompasses the complete partnership lifecycle, right from developing the products and services to joint sales and after sales support. Airtel will also provide support to these partners in India including marketing support through dedicated sales teams and marketing collaterals across all services. Carriers will be offered customized partnership models to meet their individual needs.
Airtel provides an integrated suite of local and global connectivity solutions across continents. With local network spanning over 75,000 route kilometres of fibre including intra-city fibre covering more than 500 cities, over 600 MPLS and SDH POPs, Airtel offers an unparalleled domestic reach in India. It has further extended its international footprint after the acquisition of i2i recently and has made investments in SMW4, Apollo, TAT 14, APCN2, C2C along with major shareholding in all new cable projects like Asia America Gateway and others across the globe.
About Bharti Airtel Limited:
Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is India’s leading integrated telecom services provider with an aggregate of 55.09 million customers as of end of November 2007, consisting of 52.96 million mobile customers. Bharti Airtel has been rated among the best performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list 2007.
Bharti Airtel is structured into three strategic business units - Mobile services, Telemedia services and Enterprise services. The mobile business provides mobile & fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom circles. The Telemedia business provides broadband & telephone services in 94 cities and is foraying into the IPTV and DTH segments. The Enterprise services provide end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national & international long distance services to carriers. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand. Airtel’s high-speed optic fibre network currently spans over 55,000 kms covering all the major cities in the country. The company has two international landing stations in Chennai that connects two submarine cable systems - i2i to Singapore and SEA-ME-WE-4 to Europe. For more information, visit www.bhartiairtel.in.
