Airtel Signs with VeriSign® to Bring Next-Gen
Internet Infrastructure and Identity Services to India
Partnership also improves Airtel’s internal security posture by utilizing
VeriSign® Identity Protection (VIP) service to protect employees, partners
and customers
Mountain View, Calif., January 2, 2008 – Bharti Airtel, India’s
leading telecommunications service provider, today announced that it
has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:
VRSN), the leading provider of Internet infrastructure for the networked
world. The companies agreed to form a strategic market partnership
to jointly launch best-in-class security services, to deliver VeriSign’s
identity protection, managed security and fraud detection services,
and to support the development of the next-generation Internet infrastructure
in the Indian market.
Under this arrangement, Bharti Airtel will become
VeriSign’s Strategic Market Partner and will deploy VeriSign’s world
class services in India, leveraging Bharti Airtel’s strong in-country
support and expertise. These services aim to revolutionize the way enterprises,
small and medium-sized businesses, and consumers harness the power of
the Internet and develop new applications that leverage the convergence
of mobile and internet platforms.
Additionally, as a part of the partnership, Bharti
Airtel will utilize a number of VeriSign’s capabilities, including VeriSign
Identity Protection (VIP) services to significantly improve
the internal capabilities of its own infrastructure and to better serve
its growing customer base.
Dr. Jai Menon, Director – IT & Innovation and
Group Chief Information Officer of Bharti Airtel Limited, said, “The
partnership with VeriSign demonstrates our intent to create a globally-admired
telecommunications company. Our combined strength will provide the Indian
market with the latest Internet and IP infrastructure services, strongly
supported by our local resources. We look forward to seeing the benefits
of these services internally and for our customers.”
“VeriSign expects significant growth in the Indian
market over the next several years. Our strategy was to find a partner
that shared our vision for next generation network services and had
the capability to execute, and Bharti Airtel was our clear choice,”
says Chris Parsons, Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy at VeriSign.
“Bharti’s commitment to enabling India to become a global leader in
technology is clearly demonstrated by their actions.”
The companies also announced that the new partnership
expects to deliver its first set of services to market in 2008.
About VeriSign
VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), operates digital infrastructure services
that enable and protect billions of interactions every day across the
world’s voice, video and data networks. Additional news and information
about the company is available at www.verisign.com.
About Bharti Airtel Limited
Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is India’s
leading integrated telecom services provider with an aggregate of 55.09
million customers as of end of November 2007, consisting of 52.96 million
mobile customers. Bharti Airtel has been rated among the best performing
companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list 2007.
Bharti Airtel is structured into three strategic business
units - Mobile services, Telemedia services and Enterprise services.
The mobile business provides mobile & fixed wireless services using
GSM technology across 23 telecom circles. The Telemedia business provides
broadband & telephone services in 94 cities and is foraying into
the IPTV and DTH segments. 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 55,000 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
Contacts
VeriSign Media Relations: Megan Jackson, +61 2 9236 0572, mjackson@verisign.com.au
Bharti Airtel Media Relations: Paroma Roy Chowdhury, +91 124 4552239,
Paroma.Chowdhury@airtel.in
# # #
Statements in this announcement other than historical
data and information constitute forward-looking statements within the
meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E
of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements involve risks
and uncertainties that could cause VeriSign's actual results to differ
materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements.
The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the uncertainty
of future revenue and profitability and potential fluctuations in quarterly
operating results due to such factors as the risk that VeriSign's announced
strategic relationships, including the relationship described herein,
may not result in additional products, services, customers, profits
or revenues; and increased competition and pricing pressures. More information
about potential factors that could affect the company's business and
financial results is included in VeriSign's filings with the Securities
and Exchange Commission, including in the company's Annual Report on
Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006 and quarterly reports
on Form 10-Q. VeriSign undertakes no obligation to update any of the
forward-looking statements after the date of this press release.
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