Airtel offers $500m outsourcing deal

India's largest telco Bharti Airtel will outsource the management and maintenance of its 80 000km-plus inter-city optic fibre cable network in a deal estimated at around $500 million over a five-year period, two executives familiar with the development said, reports Economic Times.

Bharti has sounded out several telecom equipment majors about the contract that will be issued soon, said an executive privy to the development. The deal is in line with the company's policy of outsourcing non-core activities to save costs and become a telecom marketing company.

Inter-city optic fibre cables, or transmission network in telecom industry parlance, carry voice (STD) and data traffic across the country. In revenue terms, Bharti is the largest carrier of voice and data traffic across the country and many of the smaller telcos use Airtel's inter-city network for carrying their STD calls.

IT outsourcing in London is set to buck the trend of IT spending this year, as analysts predict that use of third-party services will grow, states Ihotdesk.

Research from Pierre Audoin Consultants and TechMarketView stated that spending on software and IT in the UK will reduce by 1.36% across the year, despite long-term forecasts being positive.

However, IT outsourcing investment is predicted to rise by 3.1% during 2009, compared to software spending, which is expected to decline by 5.5%. Nick Mayes, analyst at PAC London, said: "Large suppliers with mature global delivery networks, intimate client relationships and annuity-based outsourcing businesses continue to fare better”.

Bangladesh could acquire a significant share in the global market for IT outsourcing through public-private partnership projects with developed countries like Japan, said a visiting IT specialist from Osaka City University, according to The New Nation.

Bangladesh has the potential to build a strong ITO industry, said Professor Keiko Morisawa, of the Graduate School for Creative Cities under Osaka City University, speaking at a workshop on ICT services development by the Embassy of Japan at a Dhaka hotel last week.

Morisawa suggested following the recent example of the Philippines and also Vietnam, which since 2005 have rapidly secured significant shares in the highly lucrative global ITO industry.