In September 2021, Meta announced plans to expand 2Africa Pearls to India. (File)
New Delhi:
Social media giant Meta Platforms and Bharti Airtel today announced a collaboration to jointly invest in telecom infrastructure to meet the growing demand for high-speed data and digital services in India.
The announcement comes on the back of telecom operators demanding revenue sharing with service providers to build networks.
“Airtel and Meta will jointly invest in global connectivity infrastructure and CPaaS (communications platform as a service) based new-age digital solutions to support the evolving needs of customers and enterprises in India,” the statement said. “
As part of the collaboration, Airtel will partner with META and STC (Saudi Telecom Company) to expand the world’s longest subsea cable system, 2Africa Pearls, to India.
In September 2021, Meta announced plans to expand 2Africa Pearls to India.
Under the collaboration, Airtel and Meta will extend cable to Airtel’s landing station in Mumbai and also acquire dedicated capacity to further strengthen its submarine network portfolio.
“2Africa Cable will significantly boost India’s cable potential and empower global hyper-scalers and businesses to build innovative integrated solutions and deliver high-quality seamless experiences to customers,” the statement said.
Airtel will also integrate Meta’s WhatsApp within its CPaaS platform. With this integration, businesses will now be able to use WhatsApp and have access to provide ubiquitous customer engagement to enterprises.
“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. Along with this, we are investing in the critical and progressive connectivity infrastructure that is needed to support the growing demand for high-speed data in India,” said Vani Venkatesh, CEO, Global Business, Bharti Airtel.
Airtel and Meta Telecom Infra Project (TIP) are members of the Open RAN project group. Airtel has signed an agreement to enhance the operational efficiency of open RANs (Radio Access Networks) and facilitate energy management and automation in radio networks using advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning models.
Airtel is currently conducting trials for the 4G and 5G Open RAN solution at select sites in the state of Haryana and will commercially deploy the solution across multiple locations in India over the next few quarters, the statement said.
Francisco Varela, Vice President, Mobile Partnerships, META, said, “We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Airtel to advance the region’s connectivity infrastructure, which will provide better network experiences for people and businesses across India “
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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