Bharti Airtel and Meta Platforms today announced a collaboration to support the growth of India's digital ecosystem. As digital infrastructure is key to growth for India's ambitious Digital aspirations, Bharti Airtel and Meta will invest in global connectivity infrastructure and CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) based digital solutions to support the needs of customers and enterprises in India.
Airtel to Partner with Meta and STC to extend 2Africa subsea cable to India:
Subsea cable systems, being the foundational and base connectivity infrastructure, are crucial to cater to the rising demand for high-speed data and digital services as India is rolling out 5G networks. To enhance India's infrastructure, Airtel will partner with Meta and STC to extend the 2Africa Pearls subsea cable system to India.
2Africa subsea cable:
2Africa is the world's longest subsea cable system and is expected to provide faster internet connectivity to almost 3 billion people globally. Airtel and Meta will extend the cable to Airtel's landing station in Mumbai and pick up the dedicated capacity to further strengthen its submarine network portfolio.
Boost to India's Cable Capacity:
The 2Africa cable will significantly boost India's cable capacity and empower global hyper-scalers and businesses to build new integrated solutions and provide a high-quality seamless experience to customers.
Open RAN Technologies:
Airtel and Meta, as members of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Open RAN project group, to increase ecosystem diversity, driving innovation and cost-efficiency in connectivity networks. In addition, Airtel has signed an agreement to help improve the operational efficiency of Open RAN and facilitate energy management and automation in radio networks using advanced analytics and AI/ML models.
4G and 5G Open RAN Trials in Haryana:
Airtel is currently conducting trials for 4G and 5G Open RAN solutions on select sites in the state of Haryana and will commercially deploy the solution across several locations in India over the next few quarters. In addition, Airtel will share its learnings with the ecosystem partners within the TIP community, including Meta, to help accelerate the deployment of Open RAN-based networks globally.
Also Read: Airtel Tariff Hike in Haryana and Odisha a Positive Move: ICICI Securities
Airtel to Integrate WhatsApp within its CPaaS platform:
Airtel will integrate Meta's WhatsApp within its CPaaS platform. With this integration, businesses will now be able to use WhatsApp's rich features and reach to provide unparalleled omni-channel customer engagement to enterprises.
Vani Venkatesh, CEO - Global Business, Bharti Airtel said: "We, at Airtel, are delighted to deepen our partnership with Meta to serve India’s digitally connected economy by leveraging the technology and infrastructure strengths of both companies. With our contributions to the 2Africa cable and Open RAN, we are investing in crucial and progressive connectivity infrastructure which is needed to support the increasing demand for high-speed data in India. We look forward to working closely with Meta to deliver best-in-class digital experiences to our customers in India."
