WiMAX is good for rural India

IN CONVERSATION

The recent acquisition of Lucent Technologies, a major telecom infrastructure provider, has put the spotlight on Alcatel as telecom pundits across the world hailed it as the merger of equals. In a tête-à-tête with Business Standard, Alcatel South Asia President Ravi Sharma explains why India is a priority location.

What would be the impact of the Alcatel-Lucent merger in India?

Once completed, the merged company will be the biggest telecom provider in the world not only from the revenue perspective, but also being the company with the widest range of products.

The merged company would also be largest in terms of countrywide operations. The Indian operations will also benefit from the strength of the merged company.

Telecom infrastructure providers are not making profits in India. Kindly comment

The telecom market is booming in India and therefore, like every other place in the world, has created both opportunities and challenges. With operators gearing up to accept more customers, the job of manufacturers is to make provision of capacity in the shortest time with the best quality and competitive pricing.

Obviously this makes it a challenging scenario and it is not surprising that not all manufacturers are able to convert these opportunities into profit.

What are Alcatel's focus areas in India?

Our priority is Internet Protocol (IP) transformation, broadband and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) networks. We also intend to execute major contracts like the BSNL and MTNL contracts within the stipulated time and deliver the best quality service.

The other priority is to become the first to launch WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access or WiMAX outdistances WiFi by miles. WiFi's range is about 100 feet (30 metres).

WiMAX will blanket a radius of 30 miles (50 km) with wireless access.) and 3G technologies in India. We would like to replicate our worldwide success of signaling with the Indian Railways. We would also like to provide more networks for the defence sector.

How is Alcatel positioning itself in India in the WiMAX sector? Will you have any partners?

We believe that WiMAX is an appropriate technology for rural India. Hence, we are preparing for its quick deployment. WiMAX technology has all the essentials strengths to revolutionalise communication in rural areas and abolishing the digital divide.

Cost is an important factor as teledensity in rural India is only 10 per cent compared with the national teledensity and four per cent compared with that in the metros.

We are ready for lab and field trials for Mobile WiMAX infrastructure. These trials will be undertaken by the third quarter of this year. We are in discussions with most operators in India and the SAARC region for WiMAX deployment.

Alcatel is banking heavily on the launch of IPTV in India. Why are you bullish about IPTV?

Alcatel and Microsoft (it has a global partnership deal with Microsoft) have deployed the maximum number of IPTV networks across the world. India is an entertainment-centric country where TV sets outnumber mobile phones.

Besides, the country is on the verge of a broadband explosion. These two features make the country an ideal base for launching IPTV.

Is Alcatel looking at India as a manufacturing base?

We have decided to treat India as one of our manufacturing hubs and have identified ITI as our long-term partner for manufacturing. At present ITI manufactures many Alcatel products at its factories like GSM equipment in Mankapur and Rae Bareilly, U P.

These plants have already achieved a capacity of over 600 base transceiver stations (BTS) per month. Rae Bareilly is also getting ready to manufacture 3G equipment which would be the first of its kind in India.