Bharti Airtel to develop hybrid cloud network

Bharti Airtel has chosen IBM and Red Hat to develop their new telco network cloud that is specifically designed to enhance supporting core operations and enabling new digital services.

Bharti Airtel is India’s third largest telecom operator according to the number of subscribers. Bharti Airtel is set to build its core network, alongside analytical tools and new enterprise and consumer services in addition to their cloud platform that is based on open standards.

They newly developed network cloud will allow Bharti Airtel to deliver a richer customer experience via improved availability, enhanced network performance, scaling the network to the edge, and automating operations. This will reduce latency and improve bandwidth availability and automation, therefore strengthening the overall quality of the network.

Bharti Airtel is set to use IBM and Red Hat’s portfolio of mixed cloud and cognitive enterprise capabilities. Bharti Airtel’s open hybrid cloud platform is projected to assist in enabling new revenue streams with on boarding of third-party services such as remote media production, enterprise services and even gaming.

Randeep Sekhon, CTO, Bharti Airtel said that by adopting IBM and Red Hat’s hybrid cloud technology all the way down to the network edge, Bharti Airtl wants to achieve improvement in time-to-market of services, reduction in operational expenses and reduced capital expenses.

Steve Canepa, Managing Director and GM of IBM Global Telecommunications, Media and Entertainment Industry, mentioned that IBM is a collaborator to several of the world’s largest and most innovative communication service providers such as Bharti Airtel, as they transform their networks into secure and open hybrid multi-cloud platforms that are preparing for the dawn of 5G and edge computing.

Darrell Jordan-Smith, Global Vice President, Vertical Industries and Accounts, at Red Hat also added that they are providing innovative and open source solutions that will aid Bhari Airtel in improving their flexibility and reducing their development time, allowing them to be more competitive in the rapidly evolving telecom market.