China Telecom and Bridge Alliance have signed a machine to machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) services deal, with both sides aiming to capitalise on the impetus the IoT is receiving in the Asia Pacific region.

The business partnership deal will allow China Telecom to offer IoT/M2M services to multinational enterprise customers across Bridge Alliance’s footprint of 34 markets.

Deng Xiao Feng, managing director of China Telecom’s global business department, said: “We are excited to join Bridge Alliance as a business partner. China Telecom has a strong portfolio of multinational enterprise customers who are looking to deploy their products and services across the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions. Bridge Alliance is the ideal partner to fulfil such requirements. Likewise, China Telecom is also ready to support any inbound opportunities from the member operators into China.

“With the supporting common platform and the business opportunities across these different regions, we are confident this partnership will be a mutually beneficial and win-win business collaboration.”

Eileen Tan, CEO of Bridge Alliance, said: “We are pleased and excited about this partnership with China Telecom. With the growing China market, the addition of China Telecom to Bridge Alliance’s network of partners will certainly bolster our position to serve our global enterprise customers better. We look forward to future collective wins and co-innovating with China Telecom.”

Elsewhere, as this publication reported last month, Versa Networks has been picked by the Beijing-based telecom company as a primary vendor for software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) and security (SD-Security) to meet the requirements of its customer base worldwide.