The Bridge Alliance (originally the Bridge Mobile Alliance) is a business alliance of 34 major mobile

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

companies in

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

, Australia,

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

and the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

. It uses connectivity and a suite of integrated value-added services, including IoT/M2M, Optimization and Enterprise Mobility, for all alliance members' subscribers while roaming on each other's networks. The concept is similar to that of the FreeMove alliance in Europe, with whom the Bridge Alliance has a partnership.FreeMove and Bridge Mobile Alliance to establish alliance-to-alliance cooperation
, Bridge Mobile Press Release, March 27, 2007

History

Established on 3 November 2004, the alliance originally comprised Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), Bharti Airtel, Globe Telecom,

Optus Singtel Optus Pty Limited is an Australian Telecommunications in Australia, telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, a suburb in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiar ...

, Telkomsel, Maxis Communications, and Taiwan Mobile,Seven leading Asia Pacific mobile operators to form region’s largest joint venture mobile company
, Bridge Alliance Press Release, November 3, 2004 enabling it to gain a foothold in the mobile markets of Singapore, India, the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan. The alliance expanded between 2005 and 2015 to also include Hong Kong CSL in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

, CTM in

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

, SK Telecom in South Korea, Advanced Info Service (AIS) in Thailand, MobiFone in Vietnam
Metfone
in Cambodia, Telkomcel in Timor-Leste, Airtel in Sri Lanka, the African operators of Bharti Airtel (in Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia), SoftBank Mobile in Japan, and Saudi Telecom Company in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. Recently, the Bridge Alliance members number close to 900 million subscribers in more than 100 markets. Bridge Alliance partners include

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

, China Unicom, FreeMove and th
Global M2M Association

Timeline

In 2004, seven large Asia Pacific mobile operators formed region's largest joint venture mobile company. In 2005, Bridge and SingTel launched their first regional mobile gaming competition. Also, CSL joined Bridge Alliance. In 2006, Bridge Alliance added CTM as an operator member. Bridge Alliance in 2007 launched capped plans with one-flat data roaming rate across 11 territories. FreeMove and Bridge Alliance established a partnership that year and two new were members added – SK telecom and AIS. Bridge Alliance launched one-flat rate, daily unlimited data roaming plan across all Bridge Alliance member countries in 2010. AIS and Globe offered Bridge VoiceSMS Roam, one-rate voice and SMS roaming price plans, across APAC in 2011. And in 2011, Bridge AsiaRoamData SIM service had an expanded coverage to 11 countries. In 2012, Bridge Alliance expanded into Vietnam and accepted MobiFone as its 12th member, and Bridge Alliance and Softbank Mobile formed a business partnership to expand enterprise offerings. In 2013, Airtel Africa joined Bridge Alliance, as did Airtel Bangladesh and Telkomce, which became its 13th member. In 2014, Saudi Telecom Company joined Bridge Alliance, and SoftBank Mobile joined Bridge Alliance. In 2016, Bridge Alliance and the Global M2M Association collaborated to drive worldwide growth in M2M and Internet of Things markets. In 2017, Bridge Alliance and FreeMove expanded a partnership to offer integrated Enterprise Mobility in 106 markets. Bridge Alliance, China Unicom and Singtel Strengthen Interconnected Platform Capabilities with eSIM Swap Collaboration in 2020. Also that year, Bridge Alliance's Global MEC task force gathered in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

for first 5G MEC summit.

References

External links

* {{Bridge Alliance Mobile telecommunications Strategic alliances

History

Timeline

See also

References

External links