Bharti Airtel, the second-largest telecom operator in India, has launched its content delivery service in partnership with Qwilt. For the unaware, Qwilt is a unique Edge Cloud Platform and Open Caching software that allows internet service providers (ISPs) to offer a better streaming experience to their users. Airtel would be able to deliver a better OTT (over-the-top) content experience to its several hundred million customers in the country. Airtel has launched Airtel Cloud’s Edge CDN, based on Qwilt’s technology and has become the largest service provider to date to deploy Qwilt’s Open Edge Cloud Solution. Qwilt’s Open Edge Cloud solution for service providers includes Qwilt software, cloud services and open APIs, providing Quality-as-a-service content delivery and caching at the very edge of the carrier’s network. Qwilt’s solution is deeply embedded within Airtel’s network and, therefore, closer to Airtel’s subscribers than any other commercial or private CDN. This edge architecture reduces the cost of building network capacity and substantially improves delivery quality. Ajay Chitkara, Director and CEO, Airtel Business, said: “Airtel is India’s leading provider of telecommunications services. As we get ready to launch 5G services, we anticipate a significant increase in data consumption across major cities. Airtel Cloud’s Edge CDN, based on Qwilt’s technology, will substantially increase our ability to reliably deliver high-quality live and VoD streaming throughout India. We already have relationships with 16+ content providers across Indian states, and we look forward to working with others looking to serve in this region so they can also enjoy the benefits of Airtel’s unique service offering across India.” Qwilt’s Open Edge Cloud enables Airtel to establish a massively distributed layer of content caching resources that deliver streaming media and applications from the closest possible location to subscribers. Each low-cost edge server can be utilized by other virtual network function (VNF)-based services making it cost-effective enough to distribute throughout the service provider’s access network. The partnership allows Airtel to scale up very rapidly as viewer demand increases. Alon Maor, CEO of Qwilt, said, “Airtel is a tremendously exciting addition to our global ecosystem of service providers, and we are delighted to power a unique content delivery service offering in India. Our edge architecture provides a new economic model for streaming delivery, in which Airtel Cloud’s Edge CDN plays a central role in the end-to-end value chain. This announcement underscores the momentum we are gathering as we realise our ambition to build the world’s highest performing edge delivery network.”
