Airtel forms managed services JV with Alcatel

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Bharti Airtel, India's leading telecommunication company, announced on Thursday it has formed a joint-venture with France's Alcatel-Lucent to manage its pan-India broadband and telephone services and help Airtel's transition to next-generation networks.

Under the joint venture, Alcatel-Lucent will design, plan, deploy, optimize and manage Bharti Airtel's broadband and telephone network across India. A new legal entity is being formed which will be operated by Alcatel-Lucent, said a press release.

According to a Reuters report, Alcatel-Lucent will hold 74 per cent in the joint venture with Bharti holding the remainder. The deal for managed services was worth $500 million over five years.

Commenting on the partnership, Manoj Kohli, CEO & joint managing director, Bharti Airtel said, "This joint venture is another step towards Bharti Airtel's vision to continuously redefine and deliver the benchmarks of customer experience. We will leverage Alcatel-Lucent's global expertise in IP transformation and network management while allowing us to focus on customer delivery and market growth."

He said this would help Airtel as it migrates to next-generation networks for its broadband and telephone customers, opening the door to advanced services and applications.

"We appreciate the opportunity that Bharti Airtel has given us to demonstrate our worldwide expertise in network transformation, managed network services and IP transformation," said Ben Verwaayen, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent. "The expansion of our relationship is drawn on our strengths as a global services player, ready to partner with innovative customers in their business transformation plans," he added.

This managed services partnership will include all end-to-end activities - service rollout, installation and fault repair, service continuity and transformation, the release added.

Bharti Airtel has over 2.7 million wireline and broadband customers. The telecom player's IT operations are handled by IBM.