#Coronavirus: Airtel Offers Partnership With Jio, Vodafone, BSNL To Improve Data Speed; Will Telcos Unite?

Almost the entire country is on lockdown now, due to Coronavirus, and the top priority of people sitting at homes is to catch up on the shows streaming on popular online streaming platforms. This has led to a huge pressure on telcos, for which the COAI has asked them to implement a few measures so that they dont feel much heat. 

Additionally, Bharti Airtel has asked its contemporaries, Jio, Reliance, etc. to get together and make intra-circle roaming pacts to ensure that the network is uninterrupted for their customers.

All over the nation, the use of internet has surged,  which has caused the network to slow down, and everyone is coming together in this situation, trying to make it better.

Pressure On Telcos As People Binge Watch Due To Isolation

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has told the Centre to ask the OTT players to ease the pressure on network infrastructure. 

People are binge watching shows and series on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and all other OTT players as a means to kill the time in isolation. However, this has resulted in a huge pressure over the OTT streaming platforms, and telcos as well. 

In order to deal with this, the COAI has penned a letter to a few OTT players, including Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Hotstar, Zee5, Alt Balaji, Voot, Sony Liv, Viuclip, Hoichoi, Netflix, SunNXT and Voot, and asked them for their cooperation for joint action to ensure that data communications services run smoothly in this critical time and period.

As per COAI, the need of the hour is that the companies that offer online streaming services, and telecom service providers should take joint responsibility to provide that data communication networks are running smoothly. 

The COAI has asked them to implement some measures, such as switching high definition streaming to standard definition streaming. Another option suggested it to remove advertisements and pop ups that require high amount data, and replacing them with public announcements on awareness of coronavirus.

Airtel Asks Jio, Vodafone, BSNL To Come Together To Offer Good Quality Internet

Bharti Airtel has written to its contemporary telecom service providers Vodafone Idea, Reliance Jio Infocomm and state-owned telcos, BSNL and MTNL to come together and pave the way for intra-circle roaming pacts to ensure that the networks keep running smoothly. 

The letter says, “It is of paramount importance that at this crucial juncture, we come together as an industry to serve the nation & prepare ourselves for any kind of exigency would like to put in place a protocol amongst the telecom service providers (TSPs) for implementation of various measures, including intra-circle roaming.”

Airtel has revealed that this exercise would be appropriate when a site is shut and where the TSP is unable to manage the up-time where the operators can ensure together that the mobile and internet run uninterrupted.

The proposed ICR arrangement states that the mobile users will be able to avail 2G, 3G and 4G services and better wireless internet speeds even during roaming within a circle/metro.