Verizon targets India’s second-largest internet user base, partners with Airtel to launch BlueJeans video conferencing solutions in India to rival Zoom, Facebook’s Messenger Rooms and the newly-launched JioMeet.
Verizon and Bharti Airtel, one of the largest Indian telecom operators have joined forces to launch ‘Airtel BlueJeans’ video conferencingOpens a new window service in India. The two companies formed a strategic alliance to roll out
enterprise-grade video conferencing solutions to enterprise customers in India.
Verizon acquired BlueJeans Network, San Jose-based video conferencing player in April 2020 to make headway into the growing Video Conferencing as a Service (VaaS) segment. Under the partnership BlueJeans cloud-based platform will be integrated and delivered over Airtel’s mobile network. It also includes a cloud point of presence in India along with the use of Airtel data centers (for data storage) located within India.
Airtel BlueJeans offerings include Meetings, Events, Rooms and the BlueJeans Gateway for Microsoft Teams. It will enable video and audio collaboration across desktops, mobile devices, conference and room systems. Airtel BlueJeans will also have a browser-based access option with WebRTCOpens a new window and HTML5 standards.
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According to Gopal Vittal, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer at Bharti Airtel, the platform’s core differentiator, securityOpens a new window will help it stand out in the crowded video conferencing market in India. “Airtel BlueJeans is a highly differentiated video conferencing solution that sets the benchmark with its high levels of security and ease of use,â€he said.
BlueJeans’ enterprise-level security features include meeting lock, secure transmission and storage, randomized meeting IDs, participant passcodes, fraud detection, and a variety of authentication options.
Airtel BlueJeans can accommodate 50,000 participants and will be free for all users for the first three months.
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The announcement comes close on the heels of Jio’s newly launched JioMeet, a Zoom-like service that has notched up more than a million downloadsOpens a new window on Google Play Store to date. While BlueJeans may consider JioMeet a lightweight competitor in the VaaS space, Zoom, which played an outsized role in heating up the video conferencing market is the dominant player in India. TechCrunchOpens a new window reported Zoom notched 35 million monthly active users in June, as per data from App Annie. Unlike Zoom and JioMeet, Airtel’s secure enterprise-grade video conferencing service is targeted at enterprise customers only in India.
Plans are in the pipeline to roll out home broadband services also in the future., “There is no reason why this can’t go into being bundled with our home broadband to end users as well. This is something we are going to look at. Over the next few weeks, you will see several approaches from us in addressing the full breadth of Indian market opportunity,†Vittal said, in closing.
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