Airtel helps India stay connected during lockdown

Telecom networks have taken center stage amidst the lockdown due to COVID 19. With people working from home, data consumption across devices have increased by leaps and bounds. To maintain the quality of networks and ensure seamless connectivity, as a leading telecom operator in the country, Airtel has taken the lead to ensure seamless connectivity to Indians across the length and breadth of the country.

We began with setting up the business contingency plan (BCP) mode to manage the surge in bandwidth as more people increasingly start to work from home from before the lockdown. We had a full-fledged contingency plan in place and this includes quarantining company’s critical network operating centres and call centres, among others. By managing all aspects at an early stage, Airtel networks are now fully equipped to handle the huge traffic load.

Our Mobile, Fixed Broadband, DTH and Fiber networks are fully geared up to serve our customers. Putting our customers first, we are offering new connections required at homes at the fastest possible pace.

With home Broadband customers upgrading to faster speeds and larger quota plans to support work from home and study for home needs, our network operations teams are working 24X7 to make sure our customers get a quality and seamless network experience at all times. Our field staff are ensuring that mobile and broadband network nodes/sites are fault free and breakdowns are attended to and fixed at the earliest.

Airtel’s B2B customers are utilizing 4G dongles, Home Fiber connections and larger enterprise bandwidths which are all being serviced smoothly.

Critical locations like MSC and Data Centre operations are being manned 24x7 with uninterrupted power availability. Airtel’s NOC (Network operating Centre), which is the nerve centre for the entire network operations, is being run seamlessly by Airtel employees and partners using high end WFH solutions. By enabling multiple factor authentication, our operators are operating remotely from the safety of their homes.

Airtel has actively distributed NOCs to monitor and manage networks from multiple locations. We have also advanced network investments to create additional capacities to serve this surge in demand. All operations are running smoothly with over 80% employees working from home seamlessly.

Virtual War rooms have been created to resolve the issues promptly and minimize field visits as restorations are being done remotely. Also, spare parts for the Network Gear have been distributed across locations to minimize the time period for restorations in case of connectivity is down.

Our OTT partners have also supported our mission of providing continuous network connectivity by reducing the configuration of the videos which in turn has enabled our customers to use data for longer duration.

Randeep Singh Sekhon, Chief Technology Officer, Bharti Airtel

And in all our solutions, the safety of our employees and partners is paramount to us and so we are adhering to safety guidelines as prescribed by the government. We are fully committed to support the government in all its efforts to fight against the current crisis. We are relentlessly providing continuous support to the central and state governments in their fight against the pandemic. We, as a critical part of the country’s telecom industry, will ensure continuous and uninterrupted availability of services which is the backbone of India’s digital infrastructure.