Bharti Airtel has entered into a strategic partnership with South Korea’s SK Telecom. Under the alliance, Airtel will leverage the expertise of Korea’s largest telecom company to build the most advanced telecom network in India.
Looking at the current situation in India, there is a landmark shift in terms of network availability and affordability. With the coming of disruptive Reliance Jio services, incumbent operators are forced to join hands to stand up against the rival, while also looking at building a more robust infrastructure.
SK Telecom will collaborate with Airtel to evolve standards for 5G, network functions virtualization, software-defined networking and IoT​. The collaboration is expected to improve network experience, build customized tools for better network planning based on customer’s device experience with machine learning and big data thrown into the mix. The capacity to identify, monitor, and deliver improvements to the network experience on an individual device basis will be a first in India.
“The two companies will also collaborate on an on-going basis to evolve standards for 5G, NFV, SDN and IoT, and jointly work towards building an enabling ecosystem for the introduction of these technologies in the Indian context,” Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said.
He further added,” This is one partnership that will decisively change the game in India and put the country at par with the most advanced broadband nations in the world.” Meanwhile, Park Jung-ho, the President and CEO of SK Telecom said,”SK Telecom will work closely with Bharti to achieve new network innovations so as to deliver a greater value to Bharti’s customers.”