Airtel teams up with Singtel to expand data business in 325 cities globally

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Bharti Airtel and Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) have combined resources to form an Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network (IP VPN) to deliver high-speed, secure data network coverage to enterprise customers in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the US.

The combined network will provide data connectivity to 325 cities across the world through 370 Points of Presence (PoP). Together, Singtel’s 200 PoPs in 160 cities around the world and Airtel’s 170 plus PoPs in 165 cities across India, Africa and Middle East will form a new network that offers a connectivity backbone to enterprises across Asia, Europe, Africa and North America.

“This association will strongly enhance our value proposition for enterprise customers by offering them a wider global reach and the largest reach within India under a single platform. In particular, this will benefit companies in the pharmaceutical, IT and IT-enabled services as well as financial services segments, which are branching out to international locations rapidly,” Manish Prakash, director for strategic ventures at Bharti Airtel, said in a joint statement issued on Tuesday.

Under this global network, multinational corporations can maintain line of sight of their operations across different regions by using high-bandwidth business applications such as cloud applications, unified communications, video conferencing and software-defined networking solutions.

“By tapping on one another’s infrastructure assets, we enhance each other’s capabilities,” said Lim Seng Kong, Managing Director of Global Enterprise Business at Singtel Group Enterprise.

Source :  http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/52745963.cms

Government issues licence guidelines for virtual telecom operators

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The entry of VNOs is expected to push down cost of providing telecom services for companies and even give them room for cutting down tariffs.

The Telecom Department on Friday released licence guidelines for virtual network operators, opening the door for new class of players which will act like retailers for telecom service providers.

 

“After considering the recommendations of Trai on VNO, the government has decided to grant Unified Licence VNO (UL VNO),” DoT said in the licence guidelines.

 

The Virtual Network Operators will be entities providing telecom services like mobile landline and internet but only as retailer for full-fledged telecom operators such as BSNL, MTNL and Airtel etc.

 

The entry of VNOs is expected to push down cost of providing telecom services for companies and even give them room for cutting down tariffs.

 

“VNO shall use underutilized telecom infrastructure of national telecom operators. This will reduced cost of ownership on telecom companies to provide telecom services at more affordable rates,” internet firm Bluetown’s Country Managing Director Satya N Gupta said.

 

For obtaining UL VNO, interested companies will need to pay a one-time non-refundable entry fee for authorisation of each service they want to provide and for each service area where they wish to operate.

 

“The total amount of entry fee shall be subject to a maximum of Rs 7.5 crore,” the guidelines said.

Private players may reap Rs 1.5 lakh crore revenue bonanza from BharatNet by 2020

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Private sector players could be in for a Rs 1.5 lakh crore revenue bonanza by 2020 if the government accepts the telecom regulator’s proposals on implementing the national broadband project, BharatNet. They, however, are sceptical about potential challenges over right of way (RoW) to lay cables and want these to be ironed out by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to ensure their active participation.

“If Trai’s (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) recommendations are implemented, and the government ensures free RoW to private sector participants, as suggested by the telecom regulator, the revenue potential from broadband services could attain very significant levels by 2020, and be in the Rs 1-1.5 lakh crore range,” Broadband India Forum (BIF) president TV Ramachandran told ET. This estimate though could very easily be exceeded, given the huge potential these services have, said Ramachandran.

The BIF represents companies such as Airtel, Vodafone, Telenor, RCom, Qualcomm, Ericsson, Intel, Marvell, UTStarcom and BSNL. Hemant Joshi, partner at Deloitte, Haskins & Sells, agreed that the revenue potential could be staggering if RoW can be done away with, since it is the biggest hurdle and the costliest part of laying optical fibre across India.

“If the RoW challenge is addressed, BharatNet as India’s principal broadband backbone, can be a potential GDP multiplier, equivalent to 2-4 times the $18 billion that is proposed to be invested in the Digital India project,” said Joshi. This, he said, effectively means BharatNet can be a trigger for adding between $36 billion and $72 billion to India’s GDP in coming years, although the pace of the multiplier effect would hinge on the speed of national broadband network rollout.

In its recent recommendations on speeding up the Rs 74,000 crore BharatNet project, Trai had listed RoW as a factor considered to be a major risk by the private sector, and had urged DoT to pave the way for “a guaranteed provision of free RoW as a necessary and non-negotiable precondition for successful deployment of the national broadband project”.

Bharat-Net is being implemented as the main high-speed Internet backbone for delivering government services to the common man under Digital India initiative. Search giant Google, which had evinced interest in providing inexpensive Internet access across India, called for steps to boost broadband speeds of existing consumers.

Source:  Economic Times