AT&T and China Telecom signed an agreement on Wednesday to share telecommunications infrastructure acrossย the U.S. and China, in a move meant to help their business customers.
Under the agreement, the carriers will take advantage of each other’s infrastructure to expand virtual private networkย (VPN) and cross-country services geared for international companies, said AT&T spokesman Greg Brutus. Theย agreement also includes sharing Wi-Fi hotspots to offer a roaming service to customers, he added.
AT&T has identified more than 1,700 large multinational companies worldwide, and many of these have a presenceย in China, according to Brutus. Currently AT&T has about 600 of those companies as its customers, but wants toย attract more with better cross-border services.
“It’s very much a two-way agreement,” Brutus said. China Telecom will be able to support global Chineseย
companies that are expanding overseas, particularly in the U.S., he added.
China Telecom, which has 120 million mobile subscribers, could not be immediately reached for comment. Theย company already plans to launch a mobile service in the U.S. during the first quarter of next year. The serviceย would work by China Telecom purchasing network capacity from an existing U.S. operator, and will be marketed toย Chinese-Americans, and students and tourists that travel between the two countries.
The agreement between AT&T and China Telecom is very basic, said Nicole Peng, a research director for analystย firm Canalys. “But I think in the future, they will have more cooperation in other areas,” she said.
Some of those areas could include jointly offering products in cloud computing and unified communications forย business customers, she said.
As part of Wednesday’s agreement, AT&T and China Telecom also plan to explore providing mutual support inย other parts of the world. This could involve AT&T helping China Telecom to expand its services in regions such asย Latin America, Brutus said. In November, AT&T signed a similar agreement with Latin Americanย
telecommunications firm American Movil to jointly explore delivering better communication services to internationalย companies.
Both AT&T and China Telecom are already partners, and started a joint venture in China called Shanghaiย
Symphony Telecommunications in 2000.