The Hindu Business Line : Bharti offers audio conferencing facility

BHARTI group has formally launched an "audio bridge" service, a facility that allows up to 120 people speak to each other in a conference from different parts of India or anywhere else in the world.

The group reckons that this service will become popular among businesses, especially the small and medium ones that need to have discussions among employees in different locations.

Mr M.S. Ravichandran, Chief Technology Officer, Bharti Telenet Ltd, a Bharti group enterprise, said here that the group had established these bridges - or hubs - in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.

More such hubs will be opened as demand for the service picks up.

A company can book the service for, say, 20 ports - or lines - for people in Delhi and Chennai to participate in the discussion. The company has to pay upfront a refundable fee of Rs 5,000.

Besides, the company will be charged Rs 4 a minute per port and Rs 4 a minute for establishing the bridge - link - between Delhi and Chennai.

Apart from these charges, the persons calling into the number allocated for the bridge will have to pay the call charges to their telephone service provider.

Mr Ravichandran, who answered questions from mediapersons who had called up a number allocated to one such audio bridge, said the service was launched about four months back and so far about 60 conferences had been handled in Chennai alone.

Bharti group is now aggressively pushing the service in the market.