BT Grows in India

LONDON -- BT today announced the increase of connecting points (nodes) for its multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) infrastructure, which is the basis for high quality video and voice services over the internet, bringing the number to 14 in India.

Six cities including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune will have multiple nodes plus an additional one in Kolkatta, making BT the global network IT service provider with the highest number of connecting points in India. BT’s network capabilities will be further extended with Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka receiving independent nodes by the end of April 2008.

Special equipped nodes in Chennai, New Delhi and Mumbai will help BT’s media and broadcast customers in India to deliver their content to a global audience and be more cost effective. It also allows them to distribute and edit content across regions, which in return provides more effective disaster recovery and continuity planning.

BT India has witnessed unprecedented growth and customer demand over the last three years seeing growth in bandwidth of over seven times and nodes by five times.

Allen Ma, president, BT Asia Pacific, said “We are being recognised by the industry and our customers as a truly global software-driven services organisation. This is due to our concerted efforts of getting closer to our customer which enables greater collaboration. With our increased presence in India we are gearing up to gain access to tier two and three cities.”

“Our greatest challenge in India is to ensure that our services and operations exceed customer needs and satisfaction at all times. Our plans for India are well on track and we are poised to reach our USD 250 million target by 2009,” he further added.

The investment in new nodes demonstrates BT's commitment to its multi-national customer base. These customers are demanding a globally consistent set of services with high levels of security, redundancy, cost-efficiency and reliability. The expansion of BT’s MPLS network in India enables more companies to maximize their benefits from BT’s global networked IT capability in the areas of convergence, CRM and security around the globe.

Arun Seth, chairman & managing Director of BT India, said, “With leadership position in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector firmly established, BT is now extending its horizon to Indian multinationals going global with specific focus on Banking, Financial services, Media, Broadcast, Pharmaceuticals, IT and Hospitality sectors. The challenge for BT in India is to stay ahead of the game. With our licenses we can now provide local billing and service management for multi site corporate customers in Asia Pacific from our Customer Network Management Centre (CNOC) in Pune.”

BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA)