Airtel Joins International Collaboration to Bring High-Speed In-Flight Data

Bharathi Airtel, India's largest telecom said today that it has joined a new global collaboration called Seamless Alliance to bring high speed, uninterrupted in-flight data connectivity to smartphone users.

Seamless Alliance has OneWeb, Airbus, Delta and Sprint as its founding members. Along with Airtel, it will work towards leveraging satellite technology so as to offer high-speed data connectivity to users even when they are up in the air.

"Airtel has joined the Seamless Alliance which will usher in a new era of open innovation for mobile operators and airlines by empowering mobile operators to extend their services into airline cabins," said the statement announcing the initiative in Barcelona, Spain.

The global initiative also said that it is looking to bring other industry operators into it, hoping to "eliminate the immense costs and hurdles commonly associated with acquisition, installation, and operation of data access infrastructure" when worked together.

Gopal Vittal, chief executive officer (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel, said that over 370 million of its mobile customers will be able to avail the services. It is the third largest mobile operator in the world with presence in 16 countries across Asia and Africa.