By Submarine Cable News Feed
Following the signing of an NNI (network-to-network interface) agreement to interconnect their respective networks, expanding connections to and from India, Pacnet and Bharti Airtel have announced a special “Gateway to India” offering for STM-1 and larger International Private Line circuits between the United States and India.
Delivered in collaboration with Pacific Crossing the “Gateway to Asia” offering will leverage the strengths of each company's submarine assets to provide a fast, resilient end-to-end connection for enterprise customers who have a large capacity requirement between these markets. The connections will utilize Bharti Airtel's i2i system, Pacnet's EAC-C2C network and Pacific Crossing's PC-1 cable system.
“This partnership marks a milestone in carrier collaboration, embracing the strength of each participating service provider to deliver high capacity IPL services that are being demanded by enterprise customers around the world looking to connect into and from India,” said Dennis Muscat, Senior Vice President of Sales, Pacnet South Asia.
“Pacific Crossing brings its strength as the leader in reliability and performance in trans-Pacific transport to this partnership,” said Mark Simpson, Chief Executive Officer, Pacific Crossing. “Our March 2008 upgrade of the core network platform, together with the realignment of our business to focus on customer service and innovation, now offers unparalleled support for our carrier customers looking to connect Asia with the United States and beyond.”
In a statement, the companies said that in today's competitive business environment, having the right end-to-end connections could mean the difference between success and failure, profit and loss. This special global connectivity offering enables enterprises to take advantage of a unique collaborative offering by Pacnet, Bharti Airtel and Pacific Crossing that combines cost savings with quality performance.
Pacnet is the region's largest independent telecommunications service provider, formed from the operational merger of Asia Netcom and Pacific Internet. Pacnet owns and operates EAC-C2C, Asia's longest submarine cable infrastructure at 36,800 km, with a design capacity of 10.24 Tbps. With a comprehensive portfolio of city-to-city connectivity, data communications and IP-based solutions and services, Pacnet delivers solutions for carrier, large enterprises and small/medium businesses. The company is headquartered in Hong Kong and Singapore with offices in all key markets in Asia and North America.
Pacific Crossing Limited (PCL) owns and operates a transpacific submarine network connecting the U.S. and Japan. The company's 21,000-km PC-1 submarine cable system offers the highest reliability and the lowest latency across the Pacific. Supported by extensive backhauls into major U.S. and Japanese cities, the company said in a statement. PCL's infrastructure offers seamless interconnection to virtually every major international network operator for onward global access. The company delivers state-of-the-art capacity and managed network services at competitive prices to a growing customer base of carriers and Tier 1 network operators. The company is registered in Hamilton, Bermuda, with principal offices in San Francisco, CA and Dallas, TX.
Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is India's leading integrated telecom services provider with an aggregate of over 69.15 million customers as of end of May 2008, consisting of 66.82 million mobile customers. The company has two international landing stations in Chennai that connects two submarine cable systems – i2i to Singapore and SEA-ME-WE-4 to Europe.