Bharti Airtel awards multi-million Euro pan India contract for single Interactive Voice Response to Nokia Siemens Networks

3 January 2008

Nokia Siemens Networks has been awarded a pan India contract from Bharti Airtel Limited for deployment of a single Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platform across all 23 circles. The three year turnkey and multi-million Euro contract includes designing, planning, systems integration and optimization services to enhance overall customer experience. The new IVR solution will enable Airtel to deliver Services such as Voice SMS, Televoting, Call Management Services (Reach-me service / Missed Call Advisor), Caller Ring back Tone (CRBT) and Voice Portal among others on a faster time-to-market basis, reduce OPEX costs due to optimized network utilization, and increase security by creation of a layered architecture towards Interactive Voice applications.

Nokia Siemens Networks will deploy and integrate the latest state-of-the-art platforms to provide a multi-technology, multi-vendor integrated solution that includes systems integration services. The platforms are HP OCMP (Open Call Management Platform), Video Gateway, Televoting Application and ASR/TTS (Automatic Speech Recognition / Text-to-Speech Engine. The solution will be ready for commercial operation by April 2008 and is expected to scale up to one billion minutes of usage per month in three years for Bharti Airtel.

“Our decision to select Nokia Siemens Networks as our partner in this program is based on their project delivery record,” said Manoj Kohli, President and CEO, Bharti Airtel Limited. “Their single IVR Solution and Voice Service Delivery Platform is based on a best-of-breed integrated approach which will result in cost optimization and increased security, a key prerequisite for building world class services.”

“This contract further strengthens Nokia Siemens Networks’ commitment to enable Bharti Airtel to continuously deliver new services and enhance its customers’ mobile experiences,” said Michael Kuehner, Head, Sub-region India, Nokia Siemens Networks. “Going forward, voice-based Services will be a key revenue generator and service differentiator in the competitive Indian market and Nokia Siemens Networks, with its strong product portfolio and extensive experience, is well positioned to address that need.”