India`s Bharti Airtel has one ambition: to become a major provider of "global wholesale" services. The service provider is making good on that ambition as it recently launched a new optical wholesale service out of Singapore that will make its 200,000 km fiber network available to any international carrier. Bharti Airtel will allow customers to white label their own services. And this service is already gaining traction as Saudi Telecom, PCCW and Oman Telecom have signed on as customers.
Bharti Airtel has designed the wholesale service to give international service providers access to its optical network. To date, Bharti has invested about $500 million to expand its global network, which has enabled it to establish network presence in 50 countries while doubling network capacity to one terabyte. Future investments will include the installation of two new cable systems by January, which will provide it with three cables on its major network routes.
The Indian-based service provider has created a sizable global wholesale business. Currently, Bharti connects 450 carriers that need network connections into India, but the focus of the new service will be to target 600 service providers that need to expand their global network presence. David Nishball, president of enterprise services at Bharti Airtel, said in a Dow Jones interview that its wholesale service will "not just be India-centric."
