Bharti Airtel ties up with Cisco; opposes price wars

Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's largest mobile services provider, and US-based Cisco Systems Inc – a global major in internet protocol (IP) services - on Tuesday announced a strategic business alliance to create products and services for enterprises small, medium and large.

The alliance would combine the strengths of Airtel's network service and Cisco's technologies and expertise to create and sell in a phased manner a set of products and services, including managed data services, hosted unified communications, connected branch services and Cisco 'TelePresence'.

Airtel and Cisco would create a team led by Sanjay Mittal, senior vice-president, Bharti Airtel, to develop and manage these services, Manoj Kohli, chief executive and joint managing director of Bharti Airtel, told reporters in Mumbai.

"From the B2C market where we already have a leadership, we are shifting focus to B2B market comprising large enterprises, medium enterprises and over six million small and medium enterprises," Kohli said. "The timing of the pact is important, as the Indian economy is on the threshold of a major B2B growth," he added.

Cisco's chief globalisation officer and executive vice-president Wim Elfrink said, "Building on the Indian government's commitment to rapid broadband deployment leading to 700 million broadband customers in next five years, we will together create and deliver transformational services for large enterprise and small and medium-sized businesses."

Aloof from price wars
Bharti Airtel won't respond to aggressive reduction in call charges by rivals, Kohli later told reporters. "Bharti does not react to competitors' initiatives. We will pursue our own strategy," he said.