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Tag: india

  • Alcatel-Lucent and Reliance Communications enter long term billion dollar contract

    Alcatel-Lucent and Reliance Communications (RCOM), a telecommunications service provider for India, announced that they had signed a contract for an innovative, end-to-end network that will provide service for customers in the Eastern and Southern regions of India through the year 2020.

    This contract means that the current business agreement between RCOM and Alcatel-Lucent will be continued with an additional 1 billion USD.

    The customer demand for communications applications and services is ever-changing and constantly evolving, thus making this agreement even more significant. According to the companies, the contract offers the first fully-integrated line of services for India, and is among only a handful across the world.

    Through the aid of Alcatel-Lucent, RCOM will combine both the wireless and wireline departments into a single, synergized organization. With this new streamlining in place, RCOM can then direct their energy toward business expansion and maintaining high-level communication services to patrons. RCOM's current practices and tools, with the help of Alcatel-Lucent, will be standardized in order to enable the optimum level of efficiency throughout the company.

    Through this contract, Reliance Communications will be able to provide quality and reliability across a variety of devices and connection mediums for its customer base. One of the first steps on Alcatel-Lucent's end of the deal will be to implement next-generation OSS (operation support systems), as well as high-end tools for improved network capabilities for the wireless, wireline, and long-distance features that RCOM has to offer. By working together, these two major companies will forge a road that the modern digital communications society of India demands.

    Gurdeep Singh, Chief Executive Officer of the Wireless Business division for RCOM, and Rajeev Singh-Molares, President of the Asia-Pacific division of Alcatel-Lucent, both commented on the contract, saying that the partnership can only bring good things for both companies, who have had a long-standing, positive relationship. Reliance Communications hopes to emerge from this agreement as the leading provider of voice and data communications services. The main priorities of Alcatel-Lucent in the relationship will be to improve quality and providing a reliable customer experience throughout all service areas.

    RCOM's Chief Executive Officer, Punit Garg, and Alcatel-Lucent India's President and Managing Director, Munish Seth, are both confident that the enhanced bond between the companies will bring great things, allowing customers to gain access to state-of-the-art technologies through this entirely re-invigorated, re-envisioned provider. Alcatel-Lucent has over 20 years of experience with outsourcing and network operation, with over 100 operations across the globe

  • Harris Stratex to Supply India’s First Urban Mobile WiMAX Network

    Harris Stratex Networks, a provider of wireless solutions, has signed a contract with ICOMM, one of India’s leading groups in the field of telecom, to supply, install, commission and maintain an IEEE 802.16e mobile WiMAX network for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).

    Under the multi-year contract, Harris Stratex will supply its StarMAX WiMAX solution to extend BSNL’s public wireless access network to provide high-speed wireless mobility in urban areas across the southern Indian state of Kerala.

    Harris Stratex will supply StarMAX IEEE 802.16e-2005 base stations, along with solutions for access services network (ASN) gateway; home agent; authentication, authorization and accounting; and network management system.

    “We greatly appreciate BSNL’s strategic leadership in India and its efforts to help the government reach its target of 20 million broadband subscribers by 2010, and are extremely proud to be a part of this very important undertaking,” said Harald Braun, president and CEO of Harris Stratex.

    BSNL is the world’s seventh-largest telecommunications company and provides a telecom services to 7,330 cities and towns, and 550,000 villages across India.

    The contract award to ICOMM and Harris Stratex will enable broadband services to be deployed throughout the state of Kerala, India’s fourth largest telecom market by revenue with a population of more than 35 million people in an area of 38,000 square kilometers.

    “This mobile WiMAX rollout by BSNL will represent one of the largest deployments of this technology in the world,” the companies announced.

    The StarMAX platform is the result of the March 2, 2009 acquisition of Telsima Corporation by Harris Stratex Networks and includes a portfolio of IEEE 802.16d-2004 and 16e-2005 compatible base stations, fixed and mobile subscriber devices, ASN gateway solutions, home agent and network management tools.

  • SUN Direct Launches HD DTH Service In India


    Sun Direct has announced the launch of India’s first HD broadcast on the direct-to-home (DTH) platform.

    The service provider has built up a subscriber base of three million since its launch in December 2007, making it India’s second largest DTH provider.

    Tony D’Silva, COO of Sun Direct, said that to keep viewers engaged it was necessary to constantly change offer new and exciting options.

    "In the coming fiscal year we look forward to occupy the pole position," he said.

    "We have added more customers than any other DTH player in the last one year and in the coming days we will be adding more innovative features, services and channels in our offerings."

  • Nimbuzz Strikes Deal With Spice Mobile


    Nimbuzz has agreed a distribution deal with Indian telecoms company Spice Mobiles.

    As a result Spice Mobile handsets will now have the Nimbuzz application pre-installed.

    Nimbuzz is a mobile instant messaging, (geo) presence and VoIP provider whose software allows users to chat, message and send files on the go.

    The deal also includes Spice Mobiles becoming a major distribution partner to join Nimbuzz’s global Manufacturer Affiliate Program.

    Spice Mobiles has approximately 25,000 retail outlets.

    Nimbuzz CEO, Evert-Jaap Lugt, said they had subscribers in over 200 countries and were growing at a rate of 20,000 new users per day.

    Nimbuzz CEO Evert_Jaap Lugt

    The Spice Mobiles deal is a global contract. In addition to India, pre-installed Spice Mobiles devices will be sold in other APAC territories.

    "This deal ensures significant market penetration for Nimbuzz across the APAC territories and we will be working closely with Spice Mobiles to encourage future shipment of new handsets,” said Lugt.

    Gartner expects India’s mobile user base of around 300 million to reach 737 million by 2012.

    Price Waterhouse Coopers reports the Indian mobile VAS market will reach USD $2 billion by the end of 2008 and expect it to account for 18 per cent of operator revenue by 2010.

    Spice Mobiles CEO, Kunal Ahooja, said the Indian market was experiencing soaring mobile usage and penetration.

  • VoIP in India: An Interview With TringMe CEO Yusuf Motiwala


    VoIP in India is very hopeful and is witnessing a number of players. This is being said across plausible internet sources and is now supported by the thoughts of Yusuf Motiwala, CEO, TringMe.

    TringMe’s range of diverse services: Call Widget, Mobile VoIP and use of web-based messengers, has won them a strong consumer base in the last 2 years.

    biz-news.com blogger correspondent Jolsna Rajan spoke with Yusuf Motiwala about TringMe’s success, its ongoing initiatives and a lot about the status and outlook of VoIP market in India.

    Biznews: Firstly, VoIP is a very young market in India. Potential seems to be high despite the recession. What would your opinion be on VoIP s outlook in India? Will we see any continual change in the offerings like the way TringMe has – no phone or a landline but just a microphone with Gtalk?

    Yusuf: Yes, VoIP is a nascent market in India, but a lot is happening around it including, as you know, the guidelines from TRAI to legalize VoIP. VoIP has a lot of potential and the recession is not going to hurt it since the need to communicate is only growing. The continued penetration of Internet, the increasing need to integrate voice over IP and the need to provide telephony to the masses for even better prices than what exists today will only help VoIP in Indian market.

    We strongly believe that as the means of communications increase (Phone, Internet, Instant Messenger, Mobile), the need to unify them will become a key to manage them. The caller does not need to know all the forms of communication devices/IDs that I carry/have. Instead, the caller should only know my one and only one ID to reach me and I should be able to receive calls on any device that I choose to. Isn’t it more intuitive?

    Yusuf Motiwala, CEO, TringMe

    To be precise, TringMe is not just microphone with Gtalk, but a lot more. As captured in our product offerings (TringMe products), we were the first ones to demonstrate web-based (Flash-based) telephony. TringPhone and our Push-N-Talk widgets enable anyone to call directly from the web. Our MobileVoIP intelligently uses any available data network including WiFi, GPRS, 3G networks to make and receive calls for next to nothing. Our SMS-based calling "brings VoIP to the masses" on the lowest end phones which are meant for only Voice and SMS. Coming to Gtalk, our platform enables Instant Messengers like Gtalk to do telephony. When you are calling from PC (Gtalk,TringPhone, Push-N-Talk widgets), all you need is microphone/speaker and when using a phone, you will not need to learn anything new. The idea is to leverage current devices and integrate them in an intelligent way. With TringMe’s platform, one can use any of the above mentioned ways of calling to call on any device. So, for example, one can call from Gtalk to a mobile device, from browser to a landline, from mobile device to a browser etc.

    Biznews: Very recently, has TRAI made VoIP in India to be legal. However, usage of VoIP has always been high and therefore with it being made legal can we expect an exponential shift in the usage of the service?

    Yusuf: To be precise, TRAI has made the recommendation to DoT (Department of Telecommunications)) to legalize VoIP. This is a big "key" step for VoIP in India. Although VoIP is being used in several forms, there has been some notion of it being not completely legal and hence we haven’t seen services that utilize VoIP to the fullest. Officially legalizing it will open the gates for usage that were potentially in the "gray area" with regards to the legality of VoIP.

    Although, it’s tough to say, predict the quantity of increase in usability, there is no way, but up for VoIP to grow. We believe that any technology that can be used to bring services to the masses is the technology that wins. VoIP is one such service since it now enables the bottom of pyramid – the common man – to make worldwide calls for a few paisa. This has never happened and as a lot of potential. Only time will tell the extent in which VoIP affects each and every one of us.

    Biznews: There are many players in the VoIP segment, so it seems. Do you agree with the statement? Is it a very competitive environment? Are players forced to reduce costs of their offerings because of competition or is the market purely driven by the customer level support / convenience?

    Yusuf: Yes, there are many players in VoIP segment and it is a competitive environment. But if you look closely, there is a major difference when compared them with TringMe. Most of the companies are "VoIP providers" – i.e. the ones which sell VoIP mins – and VoIP mins is becoming a commodity and hence you see cut-throat competition and price-wars amongst them. TringMe is in a different league – we have built technology that is used by those providers and hence we eventually benefit because of price-wars amongst the "VoIP provider". Our technology and algorithms to utilize VoIP and provide a unified way to communicate across the web and mobile has created quite a disruption in the market space given that we were the first ones to demonstrate web-based (Flash-based) telephony.

    Given the competition in the market, customers have a choice and they will not accept mediocre products for an extended duration. For a brand, it’s important that certain quality be maintained. We believe in it whole-heartedly. Infact, although VoIP has usually been associated with "not-so-good-voice-quality", Andy Abrahamson, a noted VoIP expert has commented that TringMe’s voice quality is even better than Vonage, a leader in VoIP services ( TringMe Conversations – Phweet, Aircell & TringMe Traffic Patterns). Customers and Companies are quick to "understand" such usability aspects and hence today, we are proud to say that TringMe is serving millions of customers. Big companies have embraced TringMe’s products and services which only underscores our belief that quality and the right way to use technology sells.

    Biznews: We also hear that VoIP prices are not regulated in India. Does TringMe see this as an advantage when every competitor is trying to fight their own space in the low cost market?

    Yusuf: Given that we are a technology platform provider, de-regulated VoIP prices is only a boon for us. Our technology leverages VoIP providers and hence we only benefit from such a competition. In general, competition is always healthy and we welcome competitors who want are looking to enter the same domain as ours.

    Biznews: With the increase in the market potential, can we expect a greater focus on marketing initiatives? In other words can we expect a lot of advertisements (online/ print/ TV)? Is TringMe planning on it?

    Yusuf: We have been lucky that our users have been our best marketing campaign. Almost all the market that exists for TringMe today are as a result of work-of-mouth marketing from our users. We have allocated some marketing budget for the near future to propel TringMe to the community which hasn’t yet tried TringMe. So, yes, you can expect marketing initiatives from our end. At this point, we cannot disclose the details of marketing plans since some of it is still in the works.

    Biznews: We did a quick user perception about VoIP and the question asked was: what is the first thing that comes to your mind when one says VoIP? It was interesting to note that there were no much diverse opinions. Most of them said – Skype and cheap calls. And some said low quality.

    Yusuf: Skype has been a big revolution to make Internet calls common-place. Given the precedence of calls over internet when compared to the PSTN calls, associating "cheap" with it is understandable. Since Internet was never designed to carry voice, the early attempts have yielded low/bad/not-s-good quality at the end-points.
    It’s reassuring to hear these comments since we started with similar thoughts when building TringMe. The idea was to definitely change the "low quality" perception and we have successfully demonstrated that quality can be improved with algorithms, even in the low bandwidth scenario.

    Biznews: If you could convey a message about VoIP to the same audience, will it be cheaper calls or would you like to better the perception in the minds of people?

    Yusuf: Everyone has realized that with time, the call rates have dropped and they will continue to do so. It’s important for folks to realize that TringMe’s call quality is much better than what they may perceive. Andy Abrahamson, a noted VoIP expert has commented that TringMe’s voice quality is even better than VonageAs you may seen or heard, Alec Saunders’s Calliflower replaced the PC calling solution from multi-million dollar funded Truphone to TringMe’s flash widget for convenience and quality.

    TringMe is like talking on regular phones. This, we believe will go a long way in making users realize that TringMe has taken the VoIP calls to the next level, to a place where cheap calls need not be low quality calls.

    Biznews: Also, does TringMe view the market as a challenge since most of the users rely on Skype, Jajah and Jaxtr?

    Yusuf: That’s no longer true. TringMe platform is serving 4 and half million customers everyday and hardcore Skype users moving to TringMe indicates emergence of new player. To give you an example, Phweet founder is Skype veteran and adapted to TringMe’s technology when he founded Phweet (and now skype – Phweet & TringMe connection), meet8 is an old Jajah customer now moved their entire network to TringMe, the quality speaks.
    Why? TringMe’s platform is much more diverse and covers a diverse range of spectrum than the competitors including the ones you have mentioned. We offer all of what any of our competitors provide and more. You can look at our portfolio to get a better idea of our offering which will help you better understand the overall competitor’s space and our position.
    Creating a website like Jajah, Jaxtr or Grandcentral is a matter of few minutes using TringMe’s powerful API (TringMe Blog – Roll-out your own click-to-call service). Complete source code is available.

    Biznews: A last question which is again on TringMe – If the large audience could know about TringMe what would it be?

    Yusuf: For a common man, TringMe is easiest way to stay voice reachable from anyplace in the world using any device and at anytime. For developers, integrating voice and telephony to any web-application is just a matter of few minutes.

    Biznews: Can we expect more? Will we see more features and any ongoing change?

    Yusuf: Yes, innovation is one of the core hallmarks of TringMe. As you may have known, we have released a lot of products/features in the last one year of our existence. New features, innovative solutions and interesting applications built on TringMe’s platform will definitely keep us busy and we will bring some of these applications to the market soon. Our goal is to establish TringMe as the de-facto voice platform of the web and empower everyone from a small developer to a big organization to easily deploy voice enable solutions. We have several patents (for e.g. Enhanced Click2Call) and the team is encouraged to file patents for novel ideas and algorithms. . TringMe is a small focused team with an ability to be amongst the top players in this industry.

    About TringMe: TringMe is based out of Bangalore, India & having marketing presence at San Diego, US & Singapore. TringMe was launched in October 2006. They offer call widgets, web based SIP phone, mobile VoIP and connects IM users. These solutions are offered to enterprise and home based users. The company website gives a clear message that the company is set to make calls simpler and easier; a VoIP service for the next generation.

    About Yusuf Motiwala: Yusuf Motiwala carries with him 14+ years of experience in communication and multimedia industries and is the Founder and CEO of TringMe

  • Indian VoIP Market Ripe For Growth

    The Indian market for VoIP is second only to China amongst the Asia Pacific countries and, with ever increasing numbers of broadband users, has vast potential for growth.


    biz-news.com blogger correspondent Jolsna Rajan gives her perspective on the internet communications outlook for the nation.

    The VoIP market in India is growing phenomenally. It has picked up and is all set to become the second largest market in the APAC countries after China.

    According to research by iLocus the carrier VoIP equipment market, softswitch and media gateways generated combined revenues of $2.2 billion in 2007, which represents about 24 percent growth over previous year.

    And 1,079 billion minutes of VoIP traffic carried by service providers worldwide was reported as in 2007.

    Of these minutes, 382.3 billion was local call volume, 614.4 billion was national long distance (NLD) call volume, and 82.6 billion was the international long distance (ILD) call volume.

    "India’s telecom market is one of the most dynamic telecom markets in the world, presenting high revenue potential for equipment vendors," said Jahangir Raina, an analyst at iLocus.

    "As carriers in India build next-generation networks that compete globally, we expect very rapid adoption of VoIP services not only in ILD but also in the domestic long distance segment. VocalTec is poised to meet the explosive growth expectations forecasted in our study."

    Competition

    The big players in the market like Skype, Jaxtr , Jajah continue to do well while it is interesting to note that entrants like Phonewala and TringMe have already begun to do exceedingly well.

    The growth of these new companies is very evident:

    • While Phonewala’s promoter Net4 recently got listed at BSE, TringMe is all set to capture a part of market share through its unique offering. Tringme has an embeddable flash widget that allows users to entirely get rid of their phone and call though a landline or even GTalk. Users only need a microphone connected to their computer. Calls are entirely free, and users can choose to keep their phone number private. It is already embarking onto expansion plans and is adding two more products in their portfolio, one of which is in the beta stage and the other will be a first of its own kind video product.

    The Booming Potential

    Lower cost is the most compelling reason to switch to VOIP service.

    It is one among the deregulated markets in India. Hence competitors are increasingly finding ways to cut costs.

    Also, consider the fact that CISCO alone has already shipped in excess of 200,000 IP phones to India. It also recently set up a pilot facility through their global manufacturing partner Foxconn for the production of internet protocol (IP) phones in Chennai.

    According to the Telecom Regulatory Authorty Of India (TRAI) document by 2010 India will have 20 million broadband users. This may give VoIP just get the right boost it requires.

    The Underlying Myth

    Perhaps the biggest misconception about VoIP is that it is illegal in India. Recently TRAI has been providing measures to tackle this misconception among users and hence has recommended removing earlier restrictions by appropriate licensing fees or service tax as captured.

    The second other assumption is that “low cost calls usually face problems with sound quality and reliability”. This misconception is yet to be tackled which would give a wide opportunity space especially with the corporate.

    All these disadvantages will be overcome in time and by 2010, India will witness a much better consumer acceptance.

  • Consumers Driving Indian HDTV Market


    Growth of The HDTV Market In India

    The general trends in the HDTV market shows that this will probably swell up to 78% as most of the consumers are planning to replace their old television sets with the HDTVs.

    Moreover, this fact is supported by the survey conducted in United States by “Hitachi America”.

    The expansion prospective of the HDTV market in India is equally promising. People, who earn a decent income per month, feel that this can be a proud possession for them and it is fine to pay a good amount as the quality of picture and other facilities associated with it are simply great.

    The surveys revealed the fact that 85% of the people with an annual income of more than Rs. 14.3 lakhs and about 70% of those with the annual earnings of less than Rs.14.3 lakhs are keenly interested in purchasing a HDTV.

    • What are the triggers to success?

    The secret to success of the HDTV market in India depends mainly on the intense desire of the consumers.

    In fact, the women are keener about getting these high definition televisions just like the other consumer durable products.

    They are the ones who take interest and spend ample time to browse the HDTVs available in the market from various companies.

    About 73% women and 51% men take interest in knowing more about the televisions and the specs.

    The functionality and designs of the HDTVs are very much important to acquire the huge market in India.

    In fact this is a general trend that the larger would be the TV screens, the more consumers will be enticed. In fact people are often ready to go beyond their budget to purchase a HDTV with bigger screen.

    • What are the barriers to entry?

    Though the HDTV market in India is quite promising but still there are a few barriers to be conquered.

    First of all, most of the consumers are not much aware of the difference among the available HDTV options.

    In fact, most of the customers do not have any idea what are the different technologies used in the DLP, Plasma and LCD televisions-they feel all of them are same and the features are similar as well.

    This is a complete wrong notion and the brands who wish to avail the huge market in India should put some light on this fact.

    Secondly, some of the buyers are prevented from buying these televisions because of the high price range compared to the normal televisions.

    Some of the local brands sell their products at a very reasonable price and this is why people take more interest in their goods.

    • What does a company need to do to be successful in these markets in India?

    Well calculated strategies are really important to capture the large HDTV market.

    The companies need to educate the buyers and let them know more about the technology, specs and other intricacies of the HDTVs.

    Now only the women but the men should also take equal interest in it.

    This is a great idea to provide as many features as possible keeping the price tag nominal.

    This is a competition market and the companies need to target on larger sales than making large profit from each sale.

    Quality of the products is definitely important and for this they should keep updating the technology and features on a frequent basis.