Tags: Airtel

Bharti Airtel and ECI Telecom Further Relationship with an Optical Network Expansion Agreement

– ECI’s XDM® deployed for Metro DWDM, 10G and 2.5G network expansion–

ECI Telecom Ltd. (NASDAQ: ECIL), a global provider of networking infrastructure equipment, announced today that Bharti Airtel Limited, India’s leading provider of telecommunications services, has chosen ECI to supply equipment for their nationwide optical network expansion. This one-year contract will enable network expansions through ECI’s advanced XDM® Converged Multi-Service Provisioning Platform (MSPP). These expansions allow Bharti to add new services, such as broadband data, voice and leased lines, while supporting more subscribers.

In the last 12 months, Bharti Airtel has witnessed spectacular growth both in terms of customers and revenues, thereby dominating the Indian telecom space. Airtel recently became the first Indian mobile service provider joining the exclusive club of global service providers with more than 40 million customers from a single-country. In order to manage and handle this continual growth, Bharti Airtel selected ECI’s optical solutions to increase their network capacity from 2.5G to 10G and to Metro DWDM, and to expand their current network beyond the existing footprint. With this network expansion, Airtel will be reaching out to far-flung areas in the country providing many in India with access for the first time.

Rajan Swaroop, Executive Director, Airtel Enterprise Services-Carrier, said, “At Airtel it is our constant endeavour to provide reliable, robust and ubiquitous connectivity solutions. To help deliver this promise to our customers, we have chosen to partner with ECI, with whom we’ve had a successful association since 1999.” He further added, “The best-in-class equipment, reliability and superior support that we receive from ECI are a perfect match to the world-class connectivity solutions and quality-of-service that Bharti Airtel delivers to its customers. This relationship reinforces our commitment to invest in state of the art technologies for providing scalable and future proof solutions to our customers.”

ECI’s highly scalable XDM platform offers scalable capacity with minimal hardware changes, thus leveraging the present infrastructure and providing superior savings in CAPEX. The platform’s LightSoft® network management system delivers the additional support required to manage Bharti’s network of such size and capacity. Along with the XDM platform providing reliable quality-of-service, ECI has provided an expert level of commitment to Bharti while continuing to address the need for minimal costs in infrastructure through its country-wide infrastructure.

“Our long-standing partnership with Bharti reinforces our leadership in the Indian market and validates our strengths and capabilities,” said Ido Gur, Executive Vice President, Global Sales & Marketing, at ECI Telecom. “ECI’s product roadmap reflects the requirements of Indian operators like Bharti and this win demonstrates our deep understanding of the market and ability to meet a wide range of needs for transmission solutions. It’s a pleasure to have Bharti as one of our major strategic customers.” In 2007, ECI Telecom was ranked the number one transmission equipment vendor in the Indian telecom market, by magazine Voice & Data.

About Bharti Airtel Limited:

Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is one of India’s leading private sector providers of telecommunications services with an aggregate of 42.68 million customers as of end of May‘07, consisting of 40.74 million mobile customers. Bharti Airtel has been rated among 10 best performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list.

Bharti Airtel is structured into three strategic business units - Mobile services, Broadband & Telephone (B&T) services and Enterprise services. The mobile business provides mobile & fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom circles. The B&T business provides broadband & telephone services in 94 cities. The Enterprise services provide end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national & international long distance services to carriers. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand. Airtel’s high-speed optic fibre network currently spans over 40,000 kms covering all the major cities in the country. 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. For more information, visit www.bhartiairtel.in

About ECI Telecom

ECI Telecom delivers innovative communications platforms to carriers and service providers worldwide. ECI provides efficient platforms and solutions that enable customers to rapidly deploy cost-effective, revenue-generating services.

Founded in 1961, Israel-based ECI has consistently delivered customer-focused networking solutions to the world’s largest carriers. The Company is also a market leader in many emerging markets. ECI provides scalable broadband access, transport and data networking infrastructure that provides the foundation for the communications of tomorrow, including next-generation voice, IPTV, mobility and other business solutions. For more information, please visit www.ecitele.com.

Certain statements contained in this release may contain forward-looking information with respect to plans, projections or future performance of the Company. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, product and market acceptance risks, the impact of competitive pricing, product development, commercialization and technological difficulties and other risks detailed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contacts

For ECI:
Investor Relations:
Elana Holzman, +972-3-926-6255
VP Investor Relations
elana.holzman@ecitele.com
or
Media Relations:
Sandra Welfeld, +972-3-928-7283
Corporate Communications
sandra.welfeld@ecitele.com
or
PR@vantage
Fran Bosecker, 1-845-536-1416
fbosecker@pr-vantage.com
or
For Bharti Airtel:
Paroma Roy Chowdhury, +91-9810067197
Head External & Internal Communications
paroma.chowdhury@airtel.in