Airtel Partners With Meta To Boost International Digital Connectivity

Bharti Airtel and Meta (formerly Facebook) are collaborating to develop international undersea cable infrastructure, boost digital connectivity, OpenRAN & CPaaS.

On Monday, Bharti Airtel of India and Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, announced agreements to collaborate in the fields of subsea cable systems, Open Radio Access Network (OpenRAN), and Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS).

The expansion of India’s digital ecosystem will be supported by a collaboration between Bharti Airtel and Meta Platforms, Inc., the companies declared in a joint statement.

Using advanced analytics and AI/ML models, Airtel and Meta said their firms will collaborate to improve OpenRAN’s operational effectiveness and enhance energy management in addition to automation in the radio network.

The Sunil Mittal-led telco will communicate its commercial OpenRAN implementation learnings with Meta and the rest of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Open RAN project group. Both businesses are involved in the aforementioned TIP Project Group.

In the state of Haryana, Airtel claimed it is now testing 4G and 5G Open RAN solutions; during the coming quarters, the solution would be commercially implemented across a number of locations in India.

The mid-term goals of Reliance Jio and Airtel’s OpenRAN initiatives are to put them into action. While Jio is putting forward its own effort, Airtel is collaborating with others to create an OpenRAN stack.

According to Airtel, it would include Meta’s WhatsApp into its CPaaS platform, Airtel IQ, allowing businesses to take advantage of the robust capabilities of the instant messaging service and offer omnichannel consumer interaction to corporations.

Jio, a competitor, also collaborates with Meta to create immersive technology and the metaverse. Jio has included WhatsApp into its e-commerce platform JioMart.

The longest underwater cable system in the world, 2Africa Pearls, will also be extended by Airtel, Meta, and STC to Airtel’s landing station in Mumbai. 

According to the joint statement, this would increase the nation’s cable capacity and enable businesses and global hyperscalers to create new integrated services and give customers a smooth experience.

Vani Venkatesh, CEO-Global Business, Bharti Airtel, stated, “With our contributions to the 2Africa cable and Open RAN, we are investing in important and forward-thinking connectivity infrastructure which is needed to service the increasing demand for high-speed data in India.”

Francisco Varela, vice president of mobile partnerships for Meta, said, “We look forward to continuing our relationship with Airtel to further enhance the region’s connectivity infrastructure that will provide a better network experience for people and businesses across India.”