Airtel and Cisco announce strategic alliance to bring advanced connectivity solutions

Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”) and Cisco announced an alliance to offer advanced networking and connectivity solutions to enterprise and SMB customers in India.

As part of the partnership, Airtel will offer Managed Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) services in collaboration with Cisco. Built on the Cisco-Viptela platform, Airtel’s Managed SD-WAN service will provide real-time analytics and in-built security.  This solution will also have a centralized policy, and a management controller that will provide customers with a clear view of data flows across their networks and enable them to optimize data traffic to suit their business needs.  The fully managed, resilient and dynamic central platform will help businesses reduce networking capex and lower migration issues during the transition of applications and data to the Cloud.

Airtel will also offer the Cisco-Webex service as a one-stop destination for all their conferencing and collaboration requirements. With the Webex platform, Airtel customers will be able to collaborate across multiple audio and video platforms and devices, enabling them to connect seamlessly with remote offices, clients, customers, and employees.

Ajay Chitkara, CEO – Airtel Business said, “We are delighted to announce this alliance which further strengthens the deep relationship we have with Cisco. Digital India has opened up a huge residual opportunity to help businesses in their digital transformation journey and achieve the next level of growth. We look forward to working closely with Cisco to bring best-in-class digitization and collaboration solutions to customers and consolidate Airtel’s leadership position in the Indian B2B segment.”

Sameer Garde, President, Cisco India & SAARC said “Airtel is well positioned to offer next-gen digitization solutions to enterprise customers in India and meet the quality of service expectations.  We are excited to partner with Airtel; this not only reinforces our existing relationship but also highlights Airtel’s commitment to offering a flexible, highly secure and reliable digitization and collaboration solutions to their customers.”