Wow…I didn’t know that there was such a paucity of web developers and designers in the world that India’s largest telco Airtel had to resign itself to having its broadband consumer portal powered by iGoogle (NSDQ: GOOG). For a company that for years kept mobile users limited to its walled garden, also called Airtel Live, this certainly is a cop-out. Is AirtelLive.com going to be the default homepage for Airtel Broadband subscribers? At present, AirtelLive.com redirects to http://partnerpage.google.com/airtelmail.in , and doesn’t even have an AirtelLive logo. Compare this to Sify.com, which built a content businesses around traffic from its broadband services and cybercafes, largely following the AOL (NYSE: TWX) model.

Then again, can Airtel really compete with the services that Google provides? Users are getting free access to Google Apps, email services, Documents, Calendar etc. Airtel has also partnered with Shaadi.com, 24x7guru and Naukri.com, among others. Airtel Telemedia is also promoting their sister concern - AIS India. There’s news from NDTV, ticket booking powered by Bookmyshow, Games from Indiagames, Music from Soundbuzz and Bollywood news from Bollywoodmantra.com…all hoping that they’ll get some traffic from Airtel broadband subscribers. [via release]

Readers should also remember that AOL is powering the homepage for MTNL users, though it’s fairly easy to set another browser homepage.