(30 April 2009 6:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel and Alcatel-Lucent have formed a joint venture to design, plan, deploy, optimise and manage Airtel’s broadband and telephone services in India.

Alcatel-Lucent will further manage Airtel’s transition to Next Generation Networks (NGN) ) to offer advanced services like high-speed internet, triple play, media-rich VAS, MPLS and VPN for both retail and business customers.

A new legal entity is being formed which will be operated by Alcatel-Lucent.

Says Bharti Airtel CEO and joint managing director Manoj Kohli, “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”.

“It will also help us accelerate performances as we migrate to Next Generation Networks for our broadband and telephone customers, opening the door to advanced services and applications,” adds Kohli.

Additionally, the partnership will drive optimal capital investment and increase operational efficiency by moving voice and data traffic onto a single, packetized infrastructure.

“We appreciate the opportunity that Bharti Airtel has given us to demonstrate our worldwide expertise in network transformation, managed network services and IP transformation. 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,” avers Alcatel-Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen.