No job cuts in AT&T India, firm to hire more

By Eureka Bharali   |   Friday, 12 December 2008, 15:05 IST   |    8 Comments
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Bangalore: As a relief to the Indian employees, the 12, 000 job cuts of AT&T (NYSE:T), a communications holding company will have no impact on India, where the current number of employees are more than 1000 people. "The country is completely free from any impact of the job cuts. Infact, there will be more hiring within the region despite the company being in a flux," said Gopi Gopinath, Chairman, CEO, AT&T Global Network Services, India, while announcing the establishment of AT&T's first data center in India. Set for a one billion dollar global expansion plan, the company has established the first data center at Bangalore, which will begin operations within next 20 to 30 days. Through the new facility, which spreads across 5000 square feet of land in Whitefield, the company is targeting the multinational customers in India for online data centers to add to their current $120 billion revenue. It has already bagged clients like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Bank of India. Though the company had its indirect presence in India through various domestic acquaintances like Bharti Airtel, Tata and Riatel, it has made a direct entry into the market after acquiring the NLD and INLD license in 2007. However, the communication service provider sees no threat from anyone in the country. "We do not see anyone as our competition as no one in the country is a global provider. Moreover, considering competition from other global service providers, AT&T spot no threat as they are yet to make a base in India," Gopinath says. He pinpoints that some of the global players like British Telecommunication (BT) has attained the license recently, with many of them yet in the queue. Apart from the 38 data centers worldwide, the company has introduced six super Internet Data Centers (IDCs), with one in Singapore. Moreover, it is also developing the eighth node in Delhi.