Airtel unveils digital tool for content companies

Bharti Airtel on Tuesday said it has launched a solution that can help traditional broadcasters and video organizations digitize their businesses and proposition over-the-top (OTT) streaming content.

Called Airtel IQ Video, this communications platform as-a-service (CPaaS) solution is part of the Airtel IQ cloud platform that enables organizations to add voice, video and messaging to their existing business applications with the help of application program interfaces (APIs).

Airtel IQ Video will work across Airtel’s data centre offerings, but at the same time is interoperable with Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services.

Airtel worked with three partners during the beta phase of the solution, in particular Tamil general entertainment station Raj Television Network, OTT platform Eros Now and Nepal’s CG Telecom, it said. Airtel claimed that it has another 50 clients who have shown interest in the help, a big part of who are from abroad.

Raj Television Network, for example, had a content library that included more than 30,000 hours of South Indian movies, the greater part of which were on tapes and analogue formats, as per its overseeing chief, M. Raajhendhran. The Airtel IQ Video service allows platforms, for example, these digitize their organizations and do OTT streaming. OTT streaming is the practice of offering content to clients directly over the web.