UTStarcom, Bharti Airtel to Launch IPTV Service in India

ALAMEDA/NEW DELHI,
September 17: UTStarcom has reached a deal to supply its RollingStream
end-to-end IPTV solution to Bharti Airtel, a telecommunications service
provider in India, for the launch of a new service consisting of live broadcast
television, time-shifted TV and video on demand bundled with the operator's
existing broadband and voice services.

Bharti Airtel, which has
more than 46 million customers in India, expects to offer this new service bundle
to customers in Gurgaon and the National Capital Region (NCR) by the end of the
year. The service will also be rolled out in a phased manner across eight
additional regions in the country. A single bill for the new service will be
sent to customers at the end of each month.

Earlier this year,
UTStarcom announced a three-year contract through its collaboration with Aksh
Optifibre Ltd. to deploy its RollingStream solution with Mahanagar Telephone
Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) in India. In addition to its deployments in India, UTStarcom
also has commercial IPTV deployments with China Telecom and China Netcom in
China and Softbank in Japan.

Demand for IPTV is
expected to grow significantly in the Asia-Pacific region. According to Frost
and Sullivan, IPTV subscribers in this region are expected to surpass 27
million by 2013 with China and India being the high-growth markets.

"We are happy to team
with UTStarcom to offer IPTV and other new services to our customers in
India," said Atul Bindal, the president of Airtel Broadband and Telephone
Services. "UTStarcom's RollingStream solution has proven technology to
support our requirements in rolling out IPTV service in India. We are running
our IPTV trials in Gurgaon and have received a favorable response from our
customers participating in these trials."