Singtel, Airtel to provide high speed data connectivity to global enterprises

NEW DELHI: Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel) and Bharti Airtel Limited (Airtel) have joined hands to deliver high-speed, secure data network coverage to Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the US.

They have combined resources into one network to provide high speed data connectivity to 325 cities across the world through 370 Points of Presence (PoP). This will form one of the largest Internet Protocol Virtual Private Networks (IP VPN) globally.

Together, Singtel’s 200 PoPs in 160 cities around the world and Airtel’s 170 plus PoPs in 165 cities across India, Africa and the Middle East, will form a new network that offers a connectivity backbone to enterprises which spans several continents: Asia, Europe, Africa and North America.

“We believe joining forces this way makes total sense. 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.

“With its wide coverage of cities in India, this network paves the way for our international customers to enter into one of the world’s most vibrant economies. Conversely, this partnership also opens the door for Indian companies to expand abroad, supported by Singtel’s high quality IP VPN network in major business cities in Asia, Europe and the US," said Kong.

“By combining the two networks, we provide integrated, fully-managed and secured networking service to help multinational corporations simplify their communications needs. Businesses only need to deal with a single contract and customer helpdesk on the back of one network to manage their communications across multiple countries,” he added.

Manish Prakash, Director for Strategic Ventures at Bharti Airtel, said “We are pleased to announce this strategic alliance that brings together the strengths of both companies in the global enterprise space. 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.”

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. Furthermore, the network’s high performance Multi-Protocol Label Switching feature allows customers to enjoy seamless and very fast data speeds.

The new network will ensure a consistent one-stop customer experience through a single helpdesk and an integrated Operations and Maintenance system jointly developed by the partners. These systems are designed to boost troubleshooting capabilities across the networks and standardise service quality across many regions. Combining this unified customer service together with a very high network availability and reliability, customers can have the assurance of operating over a stable network.

The development of this combined network is timely for India as Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) into the country has increased from US$16 billion to US$22 billion in the first half of 2015 compared to the second half of 2014. To increase India’s investment appeal further, the Government of India has eased FDI regulations for 15 major sectors in the economy including defence, banking, construction, single brand retail, broadcasting and civil aviation

Through this partnership, Singtel also strengthens its lead as the largest IP VPN provider in Asia Pacific with strong domestic data network in Australia, India and Singapore.