Airtel to pilot Broadband Experience Centres in UP villages

Bharti Airtel has partnered with the Department of Telecom to boost broadband penetration in rural India by piloting Broadband Experience Centres in Uttar Pradesh villages.

Under the partnership, Airtel has set up three Broadband Experience Centres in three villages pertaining to Ghazipur, Gorakhpur and Varanasi districts of Uttar Pradesh. Airtel has already committed to partner with BharatNet in up to 30,500 Gram Panchayats.

These centres will enable citizens and local entrepreneurs to experience high speed broadband connectivity as well as get access to use cases relating to e-governance, e-health and e-banking and e-commerce and much more. Going forward, these centres will also demonstrate advanced technologies and use cases around Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT).

Airtel is providing 100 mbps connectivity to these centers through infrastructure provided under DoT’s BharatNet programme. For providing other digital & web based services, Airtel has joined hands with Jiva Ayurveda (Online Health consultations), Takshilla E-Learning Services (Educational Content Services) and Amazon (for Amazon Echo smart speakers).

Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel said, “The Broadband Experience Centers established by Airtel in partnership with DoT riding on BharatNet infrastructure will will open the doors to the digital world for millions of Indians and unlock several exciting opportunities for them.”

Jayshree Gururaj, Director – Amazon Devices said, “We are pleased to collaborate with Airtel and DoT to introduce users in Ghazipur, Gorakhpur, Varanasi with the latest in voice technology from Amazon Echo smart speakers.”

Dr. Partap Chauhan, Director, Jiva Ayurveda said, “We are proud to partner with Airtel and applaud the efforts of DoT in this breakthrough and ambitious initiative of BharatNet. Connecting the 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats will ensure that affordable, quality healthcare becomes accessible at the complete grassroots level.”