Google will invest up to US$1 billion in a partnership with Bharti Airtel. The agreement includes an investment of US$700 million to acquire 1.28% ownership in Airtel and up to US$300 million toward potential multi-year commercial agreements.
The companies will focus on India-specific network domain use cases for 5G and other standards. Airtel is already using Google’s 5G-ready Evolved Packet Core & Software Defined Network platforms, and plans to explore scaling up the deployment of Google’s network virtualisation solutions to deliver a superior network experience to their customers.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel said, “Airtel and Google share the vision to grow India’s digital dividend through innovative products. With our future ready network, digital platforms, last mile distribution and payments ecosystem, we look forward to working closely with Google to increase the depth and breadth of India’s digital ecosystem.”
Apricot subsea cable to link Japan to Singapore
Google and Facebook unveiled plans for the Apricot subsea cable system, a 12,000-kilometer-long cable will connect Japan, Taiwan, Guam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore.Apricot, which is expected to launch in 2024, will boast a 190 Tbps design capacity based on space division multiplexing. It will feature a submersible reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer employing wavelength selective switch for a gridless and flexible bandwidth configuration.https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/new-apricot-subsea-cable-brings-more-connectivity-to-asiaGoogle’s…
Google Cloud opens in Delhi National Capital Region
Google Cloud inaugurated its new Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), its second Google Cloud region in India and 10th to open in Asia Pacific. Google Cloud region highlighted several major customer already active in the Delhi NCR, including InMobi, Groww, HDFC Bank, and Dr. Reddy’s Lab.Delhi NCR joins 25 existing Google Cloud regions connected via Googles high-performance network.https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/google-cloud-region-in-delhi-ncr-is-now-openGoogle…
The Economic Times: Google dominates in India
Google is building a substantial lead over rivals in India. A report in The Economic Times states that Google Search has more than 90% share of the Indian market and, likewise, YouTube is regularly watched by 80% of online users, and Google’s Android OS powers more than 90% of smartphones in the country. Moreover, a mobile payments service called Google Tez quickly captured 60% of transactions a month after its launch in September 2017. The Economic…
