Google Partners Airtel, SK Telecom on Next Generation Mobile Networks

Google on Monday announced that it's teaming up with mobile network operators globally including India's Bharti Airtel and South Korea's SK Telecom for working on the next generation mobile networks. The company in its announcement stressed on the need of upgrading the mobile networks as more users are now accessing the Internet through mobile devices.

The company says that the mobile operators are steadily adopting same technologies that are being used at Google for networking infrastructure. "To support our partners as they roll out these networks, we're working on a number of initiatives that we're excited to share progress on today," said Ankur Jain, Principal Engineer at Google, said in an announcement blog.

Google is developing a platform for operators to run their network services, and claims that the company's SDN framework will enable networks to adapt to new services and traffic patterns. The new platform from Google is also said to reduce costs for operators while promises ability to deliver new features quickly. The platform will also enable automated testing to help quickly launch and iterate on new features.

"This platform also builds on our existing efforts to jointly experiment with mobile operators on richer APIs. These APIs will enable new operational models and help operators bring new features (such as Smart Offline) to people," added Jain.

Shyam Mardikar, CTO, Wireless (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel commenting on the partnership said, "We look forward to collaborating with Google on this exciting initiative. It's great to see Google bring the benefits of their networking technologies to carriers. This will bring greater efficiencies and capabilities to mobile networks and enable us to rapidly innovate on new user experiences."

Google recently announced partnership with 27 carriers and device manufacturers available worldwide, who have now launched RCS (Rich Communications Services) for Android users. Apart from the already existing partners (including Sprint, Rogers, and Telenor), the new names include Orange, Deutsche Telekom, and Globe. Mobile manufacturers who have also partnered with Google include Micromax and Lava.