To extend the subsea cable system 2Africa Pearls to India, Airtel teams up with Meta
- ByStartupStory | December 5, 2022
On Monday, the world’s largest social networking platform Meta Platforms and Bharti Airtel together announced plans to invest in telecom infrastructure to meet India’s growing demand for high-speed internet and digital services. The announcement follows telecom operators’ demands for revenue sharing with service providers so they can build networks.
According to the statement, “Airtel and Meta will jointly invest in global connectivity infrastructure and CPaaS-based new-age digital solutions to support the emerging requirements of customers and enterprises in India.” As part of the partnership, Airtel will work with Meta and STC (Saudi Telecom Company) to connect India to the 2Africa Pearls subsea cable system, which is currently the longest subsea cable system in the world.
Meta revealed their intention to expand 2Africa Pearls to India in September 2021. In order to strengthen their submarine network portfolio, Airtel and Meta will take up dedicated capacity and extend the cable to Airtel’s landing station in Mumbai. The 2Africa cable, according to the statement, “will significantly increase India’s cable capacity and empower global hyper-scalers and businesses to build new integrated solutions and provide a high-quality seamless experience to customers.”
Within its CPaaS platform, Airtel will also incorporate WhatsApp from Meta. Businesses can now use WhatsApp and reach to offer omnichannel customer engagement to enterprises thanks to this integration.
“We at Airtel are excited to strengthen our cooperation with Meta in order to support India’s digitally connected economy by utilising the infrastructure and technological advantages of both businesses. We are investing in vital and cutting-edge connectivity infrastructure with our contributions to the 2Africa cable and Open RAN, which is required to meet the rising demand for high-speed data in India “Vani Venkatesh, CEO of Bharti Airtel’s global business, stated.
The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Open RAN project group includes Airtel and Meta as members. With the aid of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning models, Airtel has agreed to help improve Open RAN’s operational efficiency as well as facilitate energy management and automation in radio networks.
The statement said Airtel will commercially deploy the solution across several locations in India over the following few quarters. Airtel is currently conducting trials for 4G and 5G Open RAN solutions on select sites in the state of Haryana. Francisco Varela, vice president of mobile partnerships at Meta, said, “We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Airtel to further advance the region’s connectivity infrastructure and enable a better network experience for people and businesses across India.”
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