One of India's largest telecom companies by market share, Bharti Airtel, on Wednesday tied up with South Korean firm SK Telecom in a bid to build the most advanced communication network in India.
The two telecom firms will work together to enhance the standards for 5G and advanced technologies like network functions virtualisation (NFV), software-defined networking (SDN) and Internet of Things (IoT). They will also look to enable an ecosystem for introducing these technologies in India, said Bharti Airtel in a statement filed with the BSE.
"This partnership will bring a dramatically improved experience to Airtel customers in India by leveraging the expertise of a company that has built one of the best mobile broadband networks in the world," Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal has been quoted as saying in the statement.
The strategic partnership is expected to give sturdy competition to Airtel's rivals — especially Reliance Jio, which claims to provide the best 4G speed network and offers cheap prices services.
India's telecom industry has been fighting a competitive price battle for the past few years, and the tussle reached an advanced stage after Reliance Jio came into the market with its free services in the beginning and later charged less compared to other service providers.
Bharti Airtel last week alleged that Reliance Jio Infocomm has been misleading the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) through false claims that India's top three telecommunication providers had gained almost Rs 1 lakh crore in the past five years by not lowering the interconnect usage charge (IUC).
However, the Telecom Commission (TC), in a surprise move on Wednesday, provided hope to Reliance Jio rivals Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices as they had been disturbed by Reliance Jio's rock-bottom tariffs and the decision to lower the IUC rates.
As if the network war was not enough, both Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have stepped into the smartphone market in a bid to tap more customer attention and expand their share in the telecom sector.
Reliance Jio had in July said that it would introduce free 4G smartphones, where the buyer would have to pay a basic amount of Rs 1,500 and the deposit would be refunded on the returning of the phone.
To counter that, Bharti Airtel announced last month it would launch 4G smartphones worth Rs 2,500. The company has already initiated negotiations with some handset manufacturers and said the handsets would have a bigger screen, a better camera and longer battery life.
These, coupled with the just-announced tie up with the South Korean telecommunication firm, show Aitel is looking to stay well ahead of the competition in the network providers market.
"With SK Telecom's clear and undisputed leadership in technology, 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," Mittal said in the aforementioned statement.
SK Telecom is one of South Korea's biggest telecommunication providers, with over 29 million subscribers, which accounts for about 50 percent of the total market.
