BlackBerry in India

Airtel has announced the launch of BlackBerry Wireless Solutions in India. The launch is a result of a tie-up between Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited and Research In Motion (RIM). The initiative will provide the business consumer with a secure and integrated, innovative wireless access solution-Blackberry.

Airtel customers can access the advantages of push-based and always-on connectivity, and will be able to access a range of applications on their device - including e-mail, corporate data, Internet, SMS, and a bouquet of personal information management features. There are currently over 1.6 million active BlackBerry users worldwide. International studies have demonstrated that BlackBerry users clock an average productivity gain of 54 minutes per day.

The BlackBerry Wireless Solution consists of an integrated hardware, software and service elements. It includes commissioning of dedicated international leased lines to service data traffic generated by BlackBerry Handhelds in India. At the customer end, Airtel will install specially configured BlackBerry Enterprise Servers. To make the entire telecom architecture secure, Airtel claims to have commissioned a leased line network backed by 3DES based on SLAs. Customers can buy their BlackBerry in any of the following cities- Delhi, Coimbatore,

Ludhiana, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Cochin, Lucknow, and Jaipur.