Aircel Partners with Virtela to Launch India's First Global Application Acceleration Service to Fuel Indian Enterprise Expansion Worldwide

NEW DELHI and DENVER, Aug. 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

Key Benefits to Indian Enterprises:

• Speeds up access to overseas business partners, branch offices and data centers by 5-25 times
• Eliminates upfront capex requirements to achieve 80% cost savings
• Enables India's first flexible per-hour pricing model for enterprise network services

Aircel, a leading telecom player with Pan-Indian operations with a subscriber base of over 55 million, today announced an agreement with Virtela, the world's largest independent managed network, security and cloud services company. This agreement will help Aircel expand its business solution portfolio to include India's first global Cloud-based Application Acceleration Service.  The service is enabled by Virtela's innovative Enterprise Services Cloud (ESC), the industry's only cloud architecture built for enterprise networking, security and mobility.

With service delivery via Virtela ESC's 50 Local Cloud Centers (LCCs) around the world, Aircel will now be able to offer application acceleration to Indian enterprises along with an array of award-winning managed services to extend and enhance their business operations internationally.

The cloud-based application acceleration service enables enterprises to turbo-charge business applications up to 25 times faster, leveraging industry breakthrough per-hour pricing starting at just 50 cents per hour. Activated instantly around the globe via the highly-distributed network of LCCs, the service extends the cloud close to the end user and content source to accelerate applications immediately. Virtela virtualizes acceleration devices within the network cloud, enabling enterprises to escape the high cost and complexity of dedicated hardware appliances at each branch office or data center.

Virtela ESC serves as the foundation for a multitude of other industry-first cloud services in enterprise networking, security and mobility, which Aircel customers can now exploit to improve the performance and security of their critical business communications around the world at a fraction of the cost of traditional hardware-based solutions.

"Aircel's ability to deliver cost-efficient network services that focus on application performance will address the critical business needs of Indian enterprises that are operating and expanding internationally," said Chandan Ghosh, Head - Aircel Business Solutions.  "Aircel's partnership with Virtela expands our offerings with the latest cloud advancements to help our customers' business processes become more efficient and profitable on a global basis."

Cloud computing ranks as the top technology priority among Indian CIOs, according to Gartner's 2011 CIO Agenda survey(1), which shows CIOs expect to adopt new cloud services much faster than originally expected. Indian CIOs report that their top business priority is increasing enterprise growth, with expanding into new markets and geographies another top-ten priority.

Aircel is well positioned to capitalize on this enterprise push for growth by adopting new technologies that increase their competitive position with differentiated cloud services while quickly expanding network coverage.    

"We are excited to work with Aircel in expanding their innovative solution portfolio aimed at empowering every aspect of their enterprise customers' businesses," said Jian Li, Virtela Chief Technology Officer and Head of Asia-Pacific Service Provider Partnerships. "Our relationship with Aircel further demonstrates the strong value proposition Virtela's Enterprise Services Cloud offers to service providers interested in delivering seamless managed services worldwide with the highest performance, scalability and service quality."

Virtela offers an extensive suite of managed network, security, mobility and infrastructure management services, which leverage a unique model that aggregates and integrates the best local, regional and global networks to offer unparalleled geographic reach. By adding a unique overlay of intelligence that performs optimal routing and automatic failover for customer network traffic, Virtela's Enterprise Services Cloud(SM) give enterprises an inherently higher performing, more resilient and cost effective alternative to traditional carrier networks. Virtela is the single point of contact for expert design, implementation and 24x7 proactive monitoring and management worldwide.

To learn more about the benefits of Virtela ESC services, check out this short video and interactive model.

(1) Gartner, Inc., Gartner Executive Programs Survey of CIOs in India Identifies Cloud Computing as the Top Technology Priority for CIOs in 2011, March 2011

About Aircel

Aircel, a part of Maxis Communications Berhad, a leading regional telecommunications group based out of Malaysia, is now India's fifth largest and fastest growing GSM mobile service provider with a subscriber base of 55 million. It is the market leader in Tamil Nadu, Assam, North-East and Chennai.  Aircel is a Pan India operator with a presence across 23 circles. Aircel won 3G spectrum in 13 circles and BWA spectrum in 8 circles. Aircel has successfully launched 3G services in 13 circles across India, the fastest 3G roll out ever in the Indian Telecom Space. Aircel has positioned itself as a data led telecom player and has addressed the multi-functionality of a mobile phone in many innovative ways which are Industry firsts, be it the Aircel Pocket Internet, the first social networking mobile INQ on Aircel, Aircel Apollo Mobile Health Care, Blyk on Aircel an enriching engagement for the Youth and very recently the first telecom player to introduce Facebook Voice Updates on Aircel. For more information, please log on to www.aircel.com.

About Virtela

Virtela Technology Services Incorporated is the world's largest independent managed network, security and cloud services company. Virtela offers an award-winning suite of services – including managed networks, security, application acceleration and proactive infrastructure management – to mid-market and Fortune 500 customers around the world. Virtela offers unparalleled geographic reach to more than 190 countries through its partnerships with more than 500 carriers.

Virtela is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, with global support centers around the world. For more information, please call +1 (720) 475-4000 or visit www.virtela.net.

SOURCE Virtela Communications Inc.