Growing strong

TELECOM: AT&T is preparing to grow its size and capacity in India in a big way.

Having announced a $750 million investment in 2007, AT&T Global Network Services India is ready to shift gears to grow its size and capacity in India.

The company will aggressively target the corporate enterprise market "" including MNCs, information technology-enabled service companies, software and business process outsourcing sectors.

"Our managed telecom services portfolio in India has grown at 40 per cent year-on-year and we expect this segment to add further volume to revenues this fiscal," shares Sanjiv Bhagat, CEO and MD, AT&T India. The company will also tap medium businesses with offshore services for furthering its growth in managing outsourced telecom services.

Adds V S Gopinath, vice president (Asia-Pacific), AT&T, "Our networks and services are used by almost 70 per cent of global call-centre businesses, giving us an edge over competition. The challenge is to partner with local access providers in India to accelerate the distribution of our IP services and solutions to MNCs."

As part of its expansion in India, the telecom bellwether will look to add three more multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) global network nodes, which allow a single, seamless environment for both voice and data services, besides the existing five nodes in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad.

Globally, the MPLS network has helped AT&T achieve an order of magnitude improvement in network availability. The ability to dynamically manage applications, class of service and quality of service end-to-end means that services with special requirements, such as delay-sensitive Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), perform flawlessly.

The MPLS-based global IP network optimises bandwidth, allocating precisely as much or as little as the application requires, so network capacity is not wasted.

Network convergence and support scales should make it far easier for AT&T to support mobile workers by connecting them to information and IT applications using productivity-enhancing virtual private networks.

"It makes little difference whether an employee is located in a corporate office, a virtual office or on the road. A uniform set of services, delivered over a familiar network interface, helps mobile users increase productivity," shares Gopinath.

He confirms that AT&T India will seek revenue-shared partnerships with local telecom partners like Bharti to use its domestic network infrastructure.

AT&T India will also look to target small and medium businesses. "SMBs are gradually gaining awareness of the advantages of IP-based communication modes over traditional telecom, namely hassle-free interaction with business partners worldwide at a reduced cost," Bhagat says.

Cellular spending "" currently 18 per cent of overall telecom services expenditure in India "" is set to account for a larger share of the spending pie over the next five years. The main drivers that propel SMBs to adopt cellular services are the need for mobility, 24/7 connectivity, and accessibility to business partners.

Bhagat is confident that AT&T's business VoIP portfolio, security services, electronic customer service capabilities and added enhancements to global IP conferencing and contact centres will add to its client portfolio, which stands at 300 in India.

The company has predicted that its 2007 revenues should reach $120 billion, "with the India and China markets being the fastest developing for the company".