China Mobile, the largest operator in the world, signed a strategic agreement with Singapore’s StarHub and Thailand’s True to collaborate to improve cross-border ties between the companies and create interoperable services for customers.

The agreement comes under China Mobile International’s (a unit of China Mobile) ‘Hand-in-Hand’ programme it introduced last July. The non-exclusive partnership will see the three partner to boost innovation and covers five main areas: research on new network technologies, joint data business services, roaming and information sharing, joint use of network resources, and co-development of Internet of Things (IoT) business opportunities.

StarHub CEO Tan Tong Hai said: “We will work closely with China Mobile to give our mobile customers a seamless cross-border user experience. As part of this partnership, we will also look into other areas of collaborations such as data analytics, content, cybersecurity and IoT.”

The Hand-in-Hand programme, China Mobile International said, aims to form an integrated platform for an expanding group of international partners with the goal of reaching win-win partnership benefits and providing seamless services to customers.

China Mobile International, which owns diverse network resources across the region, has been developing a global Wi-Fi hub for sharing Wi-Fi network resources.