The Hindu : Business : Gearing for tomorrow's telecom technology

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 08, 2004

Business

Business

Gearing for tomorrow's telecom technology

By Anand Parthasarathy

BANGALORE, DEC. 7. Adding close to two millions telephones a month, India is one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world, second only to China in size. Which is perhaps why the New Jersey (U.S.)-based Tele-Management Forum (TMF), an international consortium of over 400 telecom operator and suppliers, for the first time held its regional summit conference here on Monday.

And while the number of phones in use here — expected to triple in three years from the current 90 million — was the catalyst for indigenous telecom business, it was the global pie in the telecom sky: worth $1.3 trillion even today, which was driving the solutions industry based in this country.

The substitution of fixed phones by mobile platforms and the thrust towards converged networks were the key technology drivers today, said T. R. Anand, Senior Vice President, Satyam Computer Services. In turn, these were driving the trend towards `smart phones' and `over-the-air' payment mechanisms; while the pace of change was shortening the life span of handsets to 18 months, before they were overtaken by obsolescence. Being a late starter, India avoided having to deal with the baggage of legacy systems and was in a position to launch services with cutting edge technologies like 3G (3rd generation), Wi-Fi and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

The BSNL's Chief General Manager (Quality Assurance), Sunder Raj, explained that with China and the U.S., India was the third country where the competing mobile technologies of GSM and CDMA were both deployed. Massive deployment of optical fibre was largely over and its harnessing had just begun.

Amit Mehta, Vice President, System Integration, at Mahindra-British Telecon (MBT), a leading Indian telecom solution provider, suggested that the `mantra' for the future should be `E2E'- end-to-end fulfilment of customers' needs by service providers and their partners, with a totally automated `zero touch' system.

Aileen Smith, U.K.-based Vice President for Business Development at TMF, the event organisers, told The Hindu, that the Forum had put together a blueprint for process direction of both business and operations support systems for the telecom industry, called the Enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM). This helps TM Forum members work to develop their own operating systems and services. The International Teleccomunication Union was likely to promulgate eTOM as an industry standard. The forum is being partnered at this event by the Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association of India (TEMA).

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