Airtel throws down Qwilt partnership for content delivery
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Editor
| 01 September 2022
Edge Cloud Platform and open caching software and cloud solutions provider Qwilt has struck a partnership with Bharti Airtel to enable India’s largest integrated telco to improve streaming quality to over 400 million subscribers across the country.
airtel logo white text horizontal 1Sep2022
By joining its global ecosystem of service providers, Qwilt believes that Airtel will be able to improve the quality of live streaming, video-on-demand (VoD) and all other media delivery to its over 400 million subscribers. The partnership will also see Airtel launch its own content delivery service, Airtel Cloud’s Edge CDN, across India based on Qwilt’s technology and become the largest service provider to date to deploy Qwilt’s Open Edge Cloud solution.

Qwilt’s Open Edge Cloud for service providers includes Qwilt software, cloud services and open APIs, providing Quality-as-a-service content delivery and caching at the edge of the carrier’s network. Qwilt’s solution is embedded within Airtel’s network, and is said to be closer to Airtel’s subscribers than any other commercial or private CDN. This edge architecture is also attributed with being able to reduce the cost of building network capacity and substantially improves delivery quality.

The solution also enables Airtel to establish a 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 used 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.

“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,” said Airtel Business director and CEO Ajay Chitkara. “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.”

“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,” added Qwilt CEO Alon Maor. “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 preforming edge delivery network.”