A local information service  today announced a strategic partnership with private telecom service provider, Airtel, to power all its city search services. The partnership enables Airtel customers to get up-to-date information about their city, free of charge, through Asklaila's extensive city information database,

Asklaila said in a statement: "The Asklaila-powered 'Airtel city search' will reach more than 30 million users across the six cities where Asklaila is available -- Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Koltaka and  Bangalore."

According to the statement, Airtel is the first telecom company in the world to deploy a multi-mode,multi-platform local search service.The service is available across three screens - the mobile (Airtel's mobile  service), the PC (Airtel'sbroadband service) and the TV (Airtel DTH)--and within the mobile service, across four modes - SMS, USSD, WP and Airtel Live.

The multi-mode mobile version of Airtel city search, powered by Asklaila, effectively addresses two major  challenges - providing accurate, credible and actionable local information and ground-up mobile-specific enhancements to leverage the advantage of multiple mobile modes, it said.

"This partnership will enable users' phones across price ranges - from an entry level Rs 2,000 handset to a high-end, feature rich Rs 35,000 mobile phone. The user experience is consistent and simple across all four modes, giving the user freedom to select an appropriate mode based on need and context", it was stated.  X