The Hindu Business Line : Bharti Airtel forays into managed data services

New portfolio
Bharti has received a standardisation certificate from Cisco
It is also in talks with AT&T and BT to offer its nationwide network
Managed services are essentially used by large corporates which have presence in many locations

Thomas K Thomas

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New Delhi, May 13 In a bid to meet the growing need for better enterprise communications, Bharti Airtel is all set to offer managed data services as part of its long distance telephony portfolio.

The company has also received a standardisation certificate from Cisco to foray into the managed services space wherein Bharti Airtel will become an end-to-end solutions provider for corporates. Bharti is also in talks with AT&T and BT to offer its nationwide network to the global majors.

“All telecom players in the country are currently offering just point-to-point infrastructure to the enterprise segment. But as more multinational firms enter the country, customers in India are demanding more levels of service than just providing connectivity. Our foray into managed services is a move to address that growing demand by offering services that takes care of all their requirement as a system integrator,” Mr David Nishball, President, Enterprise Services, Bharti Airtel, Ltd told Business Line.

Managed services are essentially used by large corporates which have presence in many locations. For example, a bank would need connectivity to link up all its various branches and ATMs spread across the country. Until now, Bharti was focussing only on providing the basic bandwidth but now it will offer a complete solution whereby the bank need not buy its own equipment or servers. Bharti will offer the equipment on lease and will also manage the entire network for them.

Observation centre

The company also has a Network Observation Centre exclusively for its managed services clients. The model is already being deployed by global majors such as AT&T and BT. However, these companies do not have a national network like Airtel, which has a point of presence in 120 locations.

Mr Nishball said that managed services market is at a nascent stage in India and Airtel is eyeing a 10 per cent share of the incremental market. “International players will raise the bar in meeting global standards in this segment. We will partner these global players wherein they can take advantage of our nationwide network.”

Other services

Bharti is also planning to bring in other services such as IP telephony and video conferencing to make its offering more attractive.

Mr Nishball said the company will also offer managed services to Indian companies which are setting up offices in other countries.