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Bharti Airtel launches Direct Terrestrial Link between India and China

omar shaikh — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:54:25 +0000

New Delhi, January 17th, 2011: Bharti airtel, a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa, in association with China Telecom Corporation have announced the commencement of a direct underground terrestrial link between India and China – the two fastest growing economies in the world. The new terrestrial link will offer robust network and seamless connectivity to customers transiting India or China to reach key global destinations.

With this network, Bharti airtel now establishes a third International Gateway for customers in India.

Built over one of the most hostile terrains, Bharti airtel and China Telecom have constructed the network in their respective territories from Siliguri to Nathula border in India and Nathula border to Yadong in China. This network will address the surging international traffic and diversity requirements of both the nations. In India, the high speed network spans from Siliguri gateway to Nathula via Pedong on one path and the second path will reach Siliguri from Nathula via Gangtok forming a ring.

Bharti airtel has also inked MoU with China Telecom to develop the Network to Network Interconnect (NNI) which allows seamless access to the combined regional and global network resources of both the operators.

According to Ajay Chitkara, CEO, Global Data Business – Bharti airtel, “The current economic boom in India and China has triggered a huge demand from global as well as domestic customers for connectivity in these nations. The launch of India-China link further strengthens our commitment of creating state of the art network for our customers through innovation and connects two fastest growing economies of the world on a low latency path.” He further added, “This new high speed link will provide unparalleled diversity to both East and West bound traffic ensuring business continuity and economic growth for both the nations.”

China Telecom is also pleased to have a network system, which has been built over a challenging geographic terrain, to enhance its network diversity and international connectivity.

About Bharti airtel Limited
Bharti airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa. The company offers mobile voice & data services, fixed line, high speed broadband, IPTV, DTH, turnkey telecom solutions for enterprises and national & international long distance services to carriers. Bharti airtel has been ranked among the six best performing technology companies in the world by BusinessWeek. Bharti airtel has over 202 million customers across its operations at the end of November 2010. To know more visit www.airtel.in.

For further information, please contact:
Gayatri Doda
Bharti airtel
+91 9910004854
gayatri.doda@airtel.in

Davesh Mathur
Hanmer MSL
+91 9811549035
davesh.mathur@hanmermsl.com

Visit http://www.didx.net/events and http://www.techistan.com/2009/10/15/techistan-recommends-global-events/ for information about conferences and summits in India, China, and other areas of Earth.

Co-edited by Suzanne Bowen, editor-in-chief and VP of Techistan online, and Maria Weisnicht, wireless editor of Techistan online, and owner of CED.

MobileMonday opens a chapter in Ahmedabad, India

omar shaikh — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:42:19 +0000

Ahmedabad, India & Helsinki, Finland September 27, 2010 – MobileMonday celebrates 10 years of collaboration, community, and innovation with the new chapter launch in Ahmedabad, India. With Ahmedabad becoming its 107th chapter, MobileMonday is now active in all continents. The Ahmedabad mobile community will join the worldwide group of mobile movers and shakers under the direction of Ashok Karania from InfoStretch with support of Rajnikant Joshi and Gargi Das.

The Indian Telecom Sector is growing at a scorching pace, with mobile carriers paying USD 15 billion for 3G spectrum. Bharti Airtel took over African operations of Zain while Tata Docomo initiated the lowest tariff of 1 Paise Per Second (USD 0.0132 Per Minute). Within a few months, Uninor, Telenor’s India Operations, reached 10 Million Subscribers.

“India is seeing amazing growth in the mobile industry. A new generation of entrepreneurs is leveraging the mobile technology for business and social uses. Whether it is ordering food and vegetables via mobile in India, transferring funds, weather alerts to fishermen, tracking logistics or teaching English – mobile is a central part of the emerging superpower,” commented Jari Tammisto, CEO of MobileMonday Global. “We warmly welcome Ahmedabad to our fast growing network of global mobile excellence.”

“We wanted to open a MobileMonday chapter in Ahmedabad to facilitate networking amongst mobile eco-system members of Gujarat state as well as collaborate and address the emerging challenges and enhance the local talent. The idea is simple – to bring together local people and companies interested in mobile: to meet and chat with each other, see what others are doing, share ideas, and possibly even work together,” says Ashok Karania, founder of MobileMonday Ahmedabad.

Ahmedabad is one of the fastest growing in India. It is already the No.1 city for small businesses featuring in the Top Ten Competitive cities of India. There are a lot of mobile innovation and development activities happening in the city. Many young mobile developers, students and established organization are fuelling mobile growth in Gujarat.

MobileMonday Ahmedabad’s mission is to promote mobile technology and to bring the people in Ahmedabad’s mobile industry together. MobileMonday Ahmedabad plans to bring together and facilitate networking amongst the professionals in the Gujarat Mobile Ecosystem – Mobile Development Companies, Mobile Testing Companies, VAS Companies, OEMs, Carriers, students and developers.

“The long tradition of entrepreneurship and mobile opportunities have created an ideal platform for the emergence of the mobile eco-system in Gujarat. Apart from hundreds of firms working on mobile application development services, there are an increasing numbers of product champions. Apart from Indian companies, mobile firms are able to successfully garner important projects from Western countries in critical sectors. Gujarat Government is one of the largest IT spenders in the country and a lot of the new Government spending is around mobile technologies. All these developments are creating new opportunities and providing the right encouragement to local talent and ideas. The outlook for mobile sector in Gujarat is very promising,” says Ashok Karania, founder of MobileMonday Ahmedabad.

Rajnikant Joshi of InfoStretch adds: “Ahmedabad is at the fore-front of the mobile industry with great talents on offer. Our APAC Headquarters are in Ahmedabad and we have a team of more than 150 software professionals working here. We have also hosted and managed India’s first mobile cloud platform from Ahmedabad.”

Gargi Das, one of the young Nokia Forum Champions, agrees: “The highly talented engineers from Gujarat are attracted to mobile software and are interested in firms providing the mobile exposure. This is a radical shift from the traditional bias towards Microsoft-led IT Services. IIT-Gandhinagar, Gujarat Universtity, Nirma Universtity and other leading colleges are helping create the next generation of talent.”

MobileMonday Ahmedabad activities will commence in October. All events of MobileMonday Ahmedabad are open to everyone and free of cost. If you are interested to participate, please contact Ashok Karania at ashok.karania(at)infostretch.com.

For more information:

Jari Tammisto, CEO, MoMo Global
Tel: +358 400 333 366
jari.tammisto(at)mobilemonday.fi

Ashok Karania, founder, MoMo Ahmedabad
Tel:+91 99981 69694

ashok(at)momo-ahmedabad.in

Web URL:

http://www.momo-ahmedabad.in/

About Mobile Monday

MobileMonday (MoMo) is an open community platform of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influential individuals fostering brand neutral cooperation and cross-border P2P business opportunities through live networking events to demo products, share ideas and discuss trends from both local and global markets. For more information, visit http://www.mobilemonday.net/.

Techistan first met Ashok Karania when our VP Suzanne Bowen created a video interview with him at GSMA Mobile World Congress in 2009. Watch the video.

Interview with Mr. Sridhar T. Pai’s CEO Tonse Telecom on Market-Driven Dynamics of 2G to 3G Migration

omar shaikh — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:44:28 +0000

Techistan is a media partner and press agent for hundreds of IT, social change, business, and IP-related conferences around the world. India Beat Reporter Yahya Sabir interviewed Mr. Sridhar T. Pai, CEO of onse Telecom at the India 3G Summit in New Delhi at http://www.virtueinsight.com/site/TelecomDetails.aspx?SC_ID=2 on the dynamics of migrating from 2G to 3G in the wireless industry, the good, the bad and the ugly. The transcript and video follow.

Yahya Sabir: Hi my name is Yahya Sabir from Techistan magazine and I’m with Mr. Sridhar T. Pai, CEO of Tonse Telecom, so sir tell us about your company.

Sridhar T. Pai: Tonse Telecom … it actually is…. very much focused on the Indian wireless sector and we have been in around 4 or 5 years now, originally the business wants to target an assist small wireless ISPs, which are building weather service types and applications and assisting them to hate from fresh business, guide them to their own maps, have them raise capitals along a way we continue to do that but at a consultation would’ve….would tell you, most of the larger consulting come from larger operators and lager a1 companies ands today we have a number customers across the board from the handset companies to research entities.

Yahya Sabir: Ah.. There has been a lot of fight for 3g in India as you have seen and the buzz have been very high but there is also a pattern in 3g because as much as hype has been for 3g, the service of 2g has dickered out. I mean like the voice calls are not getting through. Fhere have been a lot of issues with best operators even, Airtel and Bharti Airtel. Even I am using an Airtel phone (one of the best) and I know that these problems. Is this a … I mean is this just a technical problem or is this a strategy to phase out 2g and move on… make people move on to 3g?

Sridhar T. Pai: There’s no such strategy to phase out 2G.

Yahya Sabir: Because there were….as as a person mentioned earlier in a presentation that BSNL has a…. you know a billboard that says voice service is better than 3g and cheaper than 3g…oh sorry better than 3g and cheaper than 2g, so I mean is this a strategy or is this just a coincidence?

Sridhar T. Pai: No no…there no strategy, like the strategy is to build that subscribers, combined cellulars and many more and ability to pay and ability to enjoy higher quality experiences. Those will be moved to 3g. Those will be automatically moved to 3g because that’s where the higher quality experience will come, so no operator will want to kill his main business. That’s not the intention at all. Plan is also talking about spectrum … 2g spectrum would not be suitable for the high bandwidth use, so you will have your 2g customers, you willhave your 3g customers. There is an evolution path for everybody, so you know down the road after 3g steps. It just goes that way, so you continue to drive higher quality bandwidth, higher quality experiences …..

Yahya Sabir: Right, and there is the rumor that you know the operator. Some operators are upgrading their 2g network to 3g, not actually adding a 3g to there current structure. I mean as you know for these upgraded services. Is this true or is it just a rumor?

Sridhar T. Pai: It doesn’t matter whether you are great or you are small, I think it’s just play of words. This is kind a means, because it’s like this, some may forgive the Indian cellular market. It is not…was not created yesterday, right? First cellular licenses were given out in 94, 95, 96 time field, so as you can tell… numbers of players have come around since then. Some have disappeared, some have emerged.

So if somebody puts up a network in 1997 or 98, let’s say some cell sites in one particular city, it’s already 10, 12,13 years old now, right? As you can imagine, how much technology in the environment happens in this industry so based on tuition that remain in 97 and 98, it may not be appreciable to it. But the base tuition deployed to 2005, and2006 are appreciable today to 3g, so those for instance are similar to any other.

Similarly those technologies that started with the base tuition earlier , may not have been up rated, so those who actually remove them and put them in registrations. Those that were installed a few years ago, may be 2, 3 , 4 years ago because they are already capable of the … you know it’s like the HD team.

HD ready in your house, so you just bring them and put them in a HD card, similar these are 3D ready, so all you do is, you do a software of readiness, so it becomes a reality.

Yahya Sabir: 3G lends to entertainment revenue technology, so how is it going to benefit the enterprises? I mean, individuals they can, we can watch videos and you know do video calling and everything, but what about enterprises? How will this fit their needs?

Sridhar T. Pai: See, at the end of the day, 3G is a certain issue of wireless spectrum and a technology that allows you to do highest speed data. What you will lose or win, that’s up to you. If the operator feels that his customers are going to use it for entertainment, if the operator feels that enterprise customers are going to use it for de-congesting themselves or quickly adding new data connectivity to your new branch and so on.

It is not a rumor or it is not a question of who does it for what? It’s a question of, you can use it for whatever you want? For example, you have a television at home. You want to watch MTV or do you want to watch news, something similarly you tune in whatever you want. Depending on the category of the customers, the operator will choose a package-based service to meet that type of requirement.

Yahya Sabir: As in 2g, we’ve seen last 2 or 3 years that there have been a tough competition and tariff wars. Actually price cutting everything, tariff cutting. So are we going to see the same thing in 3G also? Or does the government have a good plan .. a good set of regulations for this, so it doesn’t happen again? Big operators who feel an effect on their market. The first 3G plan will be 80 or 90 rupees approximately, but in India, that is costly. Do you think the people are going to wait for the price to drop?

Sridhar T. Pai: There are many aspects. One is the role of the government, the role of the regulator. The role of ministry of Telecom is to create the platform, which they have done, by allowing these spectrum options. So once spectrum options are given, it belongs to those respective operators. Now what they do with it, how much they utilize it, to harvest the opportunity in the market is up to them.

If they decide to go and fight on the basis of talent authorizing, nobody could stop them. It will become a bloodless war, now usually it does… now what you are saying is true. It did happen in 2g, but you know when it happened, it happened after a long time. See, initially everybody is so busy rolling out the network and normally what you do, when you roll out your branded network, you hope to keep your existing customers and more them to the upgrade.

If you’re a 2g customer from Bharti, Inter or XYZ, they’ll come to you and say, “Hey, hold on, we know that you are using your data and exactly how much. We have this great offer for you, where we’ll be able to let you do 3G.”

It is up to the user to take it or not. After a certain level of petrification has happened in 3G, then you find that mutual competition is beginning to grow. That is the price of what happens. That is very pure market-driven dynamics! Many times it happens when a brand new operator comes into your market because things just get barraged. (The remaining transcript will be available soon.)

Connect with Yahya Sabir, Techistan Editor (India beat) and Mr. Sridhar T. Pai (CEO of Tonse Telecom) on social business networks.

Let me Tell you about Zong

omar shaikh — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:32:37 +0000

Yikes, I wish I had more time to share my experiences, knowledge, observations of best practices, and other items related to monetizing IP communications… before heading home for the day, I want share a memory of a great mobile phone service…

Zong is the Tibetan word for county, referring both to the traditional government units and modern counties established by the People’s Republic of China. It also is the name of a telecommunications service provider in Pakistan.

I used a Zong SIMM from China Mobile in my Nokia E61i during the month of August 2008 while participating in ITCN Asia and visiting with every voip company, wireless company and phone company I could find from Karachi to Sialkot to Faisalabad, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and every smaller town possible in between.

(I remember the China Mobile representatives sitting near the front of the audience listening to the keynote panel which I was a part of at ITCN Asia 2008. They were happy when I said, “Hello” in many languages including “Nihao” at the beginning of my presentation.)

The service was excellent, very clear in voice quality, and inexpensive. For example, while using it during my telecom trek through Pakistan, it cost only one USD cent per minute to call from the Zong service to a USA phone number. Remember, I was in Pakistan calling from a cell phone!

China Mobile is the world’s largest telecom operator. It Zong service has over 550 million customers, more than 260 million calls per hour, and 720 million text messages each day. The service works all over Pakistan, even in the mountainous and poor areas of Northwest Pakistan that looked like no one would want to live there. I used it all over the area.

It also works outside of Pakistan, the same great service… even at the top of Mount Everest.

In addition, most mobile service companies offer only a few choices of types of service, but Zong offers hundreds of payment plans and packages to more easily and affordably match its customers’ usage patterns, usage needs and types, and level of income. In the USA, that will is not common.

China Mobile Pakistan is China Mobile’s first overseas subsidiary. It has a license to serve the entire country of Pakistan. The country is proving daily that it offers one of the most amazingly fast-growing mobile phone service markets on Earth. In fact, China Mobile will invest $300 million USD in Pakistan in 2010. This is the largest investment by any telecom operator in 2010 in the world to this date.

What is really incredible is that the company is responsible for over 42,000 new jobs directly in Pakistan with China Mobile or those directly leveraging China Mobile.

In conclusion, China Mobile and its Zong offers reliable, inexpensive mobile service, has created thousands of new jobs, and has invested millions of dollars in Pakistan. China Mobile and Zong are a “must watch,” and if possible, a “must do business with” like Zain of the Middle East and Bharti Airtel of India. Our company is paying attention.

CTIA is the Gathering of the Brightest in Wireless

omar shaikh — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:21:00 +0000

Thanks to TechDigest.

The mobile market is important in all 190 plus nations on Earth where the number of mobile subscribers increases at a phemonenally faster rate than fixed subscribers. But how many times have wireless operators heard the term “dumb pipes” applied to them in the last few months? What has happened in the last six months that is driving the push for thousands to sign on to sponsor, present at, exhibit at and participate in CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas, NV on March 23-26, 2010?

Google Android™ mobile technology platform, Apple and other service and product providers in the wireless industry battle for the market of APP-hungry smart phone users. Bharti Airtel has 400,000 downloads documented in the first five days its applications offering. The BBC is developing apps for Apple’s iPhone and next Blackberry and Android with content that can be personalized in areas like sports, politics, health, or technology. Verizon has enabled its 3G smartphone users to be able to make free or inexpensive international phone calls via a joint application with Skype.

The APP Planet area in Hall 7 of GSMA Mobile World Congress 2010 was filled with mobile and wireless innovation frenzy. Be prepared for more excitement at CTIA Wireless conference’s Apps World of 30,000 square feet.

The seasoned in age and young are rushing to try and use mobile applications. Dylan Maryk, at 14 years old, creates apps. His first is a musical alarm clock, followed by an iSpy game for car travel and a Valentine’s Day service to share a hug or wink on iPhone screens. In fact, 16-22 year olds are seen as a new market for 3G and smartphones but cost is the first issue. HTC and Telefonica announced an exclusive deal on February 17 to roll out the HTC Smart (affordably priced smart phone at ) in April 2010.

Peter Chou, CEO of HTC said, “People all over the world want smarter phones but are often discouraged by twin issues of affordability and complexity.”

A visitor at the VoIPSWITCH exhibit in the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2010 stated, “We thought it was cool when Queen Rania of Jordan used the phrase, ‘phonanthropy’ in reference to mobile + Haiti relief efforts. Everyone in our family and company has been using Skype on Nokia for almost a year now. We like the Gravity platform app for Twitte. One of us is thinking of trying a Droid. Our market, BTW, is university research programs. The next conference we plan to attend is CTIA Wireless.”

3UK, a UK mobile operator who was first in Europe to offer a flat rate unlimited data plan and to welcome Skype. They say their Skype users make more standard international calls, send more text messages, and use more data than non-Skype users. The company also provides a service where its users can download up to 3,000 mp3s from their 3UK playlists to their cell phone to listen to offline for up to 30 days. Such a move saves its users on potential roaming or high streaming charges.

High streaming is what happens with video also. 3G users expect mobile video because of its popularity promoted by YouTube and iTunes. Such use increases data use which has caught many mobile operators by surprise where data is often available unlimited on a flat rate. The next problem is that the majority of content that a mobile operator’s users want to view and hear is not located on the provider’s network. Find out at CTIA Wireless more about how operators can deal with these problems, whether by placing stored content closer to the user via caching, add bigger pipes, create more effective peering opportunities, and/or totally change the paradigm of operators as just pipe providers to pipe, content and service providers.

Qtel, a mobile operator in Qatar, provides mobile money services in 17 countries. They have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding for an exclusive partnership with Universal Music so the operator will be able offer unlimited music to over 53 million customers.

There’s a buying frenzy of mobile and wireless companies and services. Emirates Telecommunications Corp (Etisalat) is is on the verge pf buying a majority stake in Iraq’s Korek Telecom. Telefonica’s O2 bought Jajah in 2009. Google bought Gizmo5 (a service that included use on mobile for chat, incoming calls via DID phone numbers from 65 countries, and low cost outgoing calls as well as free calls Gizmo to Gizmo), Sabsebolo bought Jaxtr, and KDDI America has entered agreements with Locus Telecommunications, Inc. and Total Call International, Inc . to invest. Rumor has it that Bharti is seeking $8 billion USD loans to fund Zain acquisition.

Colibria and Frost & Sullivan research shows that mobile social networking market in Latin America is predicted to be worth $900 million USD with 200 million users and African market $1.5 billion USD with 330 million users. The interest in and increasing availability and use of the mobile phone or mobile products for Internet use will spur this growth.

Mobile phones, operators, MVNOs* and service providers are becoming or giving access to digital wallets, media centers, office suites, marketplaces, health record archives and more. Consumers and SMBs are throwing away their landlines in a new desire for mobility, flexibility and anything, anywhere, anytime availability. Thousands of the greatest minds in wireless and mobile will converge on the Las Vegas Convention Center March 23-25, 2010. Sign up at http://www.ctiawireless.com.

* An MVNO is a service provider that enables mobile telephone services leasing wireless communications infrastructure for mobile handsets from third parties. They often target the needs of a specific market based on age, gender, lifestyle, hobbies, and/or geographic location.

PTC 2010 Techistan Photo Gallery

omar shaikh — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:31:22 +0000

PTC 2010 is set in Honolulu, Hawaii at the Hilton Hawaiian. A popular spot is the Tapa Bar, but the exhibit hall and the beach almost tie for first place. Among the exciting announcements are Bharti Airtel’s purchase of 70% of Bangladesh Warid Telecom and PacketExchange’s acquisition of Mzima Networks. Enjoy the pictures as we add them to the PTC 2010 Techistan photo gallery.

Techistan and its sister service DIDX were media partner and press agent for PTC 2010.

Capacity Media Asia Optimum Wholesale Telecom Meetups

omar shaikh — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:18:41 +0000

With names like PCCW Global, Telekom Malaysia Berhad, Rogers Cable Communications, Orange, and Bharti Airtel, together in Kuala Lumpur, fastest growing metropolitan region in the Malaysia, in terms of population as well as economy and one of the global telecom and technology hubs from the Middle East through Asia, good business will abound. Capacity Media Asia also boasts Deutsche Telecom, Telecom Italia Sparkle, Global Crossing, Hutchinson Global Communications, Telecom Egypt, Verizon Business and Zoha Kish Communications as sponsors. Scheduled this week November 4-5, 2009, readers have time to schedule flight and hotel now. (It is Nov. 2, 2009 Monday 7:47 PM, and I am checking Delta connections now. I have plenty of SkyMiles from a whirlwind schedule of 39 conferences in a 24 month period.)

At DIDX and Techistan headquarters we have been focusing on conferences in the Americas and Europe for the past five years or so, but more and more we are scheduling Asia, Africa, the Pacific and Middle East with shows in Singapore like CommunicAsia, PTC, ITCN Asia, Softec, tradeshows in Kenya and South Africa, Gitex, and ICT Expo Indonesia. A majority of new wholesale DIDX seller members are from this region and the a large majority of the new wholesale buyer members are from this region. The latter are also requiring more direct inward dialing from the EMEA and APEC regions.

Book your registration by downloading the order form and then email to Claire Russell or pay online with the Shopping Cart.

Browse the Capacity Media Asia Agenda. Learn from representatives of Unicom (China), the CEO of Capacity Magazine, Tata Communications, NTT Communications, Telekom Malaysia, Hibbard Consulting, Reliance GlobalComm, and KDDI. Mix with some exciting exhibitors such as Ancotel, iconX, Viettel, Telecom Asia, WirelessAsia, CommsDay and more.