Respite from pesky calls, messages: Airtel awards pan-India blockchain deal to IBM

NEW DELHI: Mobile phone subscribers can hope to have some serious respite from pesky calls and messages, the war against which is being now being taken to the next technological level. Bharti Airtel has awarded a multi-million-dollar contract to US technology major IBM to deploy a blockchain -based pan India network which will allow the telco to protect its 284 million subscribers from pesky calls and messages, two persons familiar with the matter said.

“Airtel’s consumer will have complete control over what messages they would want to get or block at… the scope of mischief will be considerably reduced, thereby curbing fake transactions and fraud,” a person familiar with the matter said. “It’s a reasonably significant sized contract.”