Sify targets voice telecom pie via VoIP

On 25 Aug 2009, 1909 hrs IST, Niranjana Ramesh, ET Bureau at http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Sify-targets-voice-telecom-pie-via-VoIP/articleshow/4933615.cms

CHENNAI: Sify Technologies, a pioneer among private internet service providers (ISP) in India with 5.7 lakh subscribers and a 5.8% market share, is now targeting yet another area of telecommunications for a first mover advantage – Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), for the mass consumer market, as and when government regulation permits it within the country.

“It is a foregone conclusion that we would have a tremendous edge in the VoIP space, technically, when such telephony is allowed in India,” said Sify chief architect (CTO) Arvind Mathur. “Sify’s ISP network is spread across India covering all states with 900 points of presence.” A point of presence (POP) in internet protocol is analogous to a base station or a telecom tower in mobile telephony. But, the capacity of a POP is expandable based on the nodes attached to it.

Sify also holds significant spectrum in the 2.4 GHz, 3.3 GHz and 5.8 GHz frequency bands. 2.4 GHz has, recently, been chosen for the purpose of Wimax services in India, and is yet to be auctioned off. “We will comply by whatever regulation that the government stipulates for the usage of such spectrum,” Mr.Mathur said. “But, we hold enough spectrum to be able to effectively provide last mile connectivity as well as POP to POP connectivity through the wireless mode. We have also invested in buying or leasing cable from carriers for long distance connectivity.”

The company has, in the past few years, ramped up its data centre capacity to augment its core competency of internet protocol based communication. It has invested Rs.100 crore in building data centers in different locations with a total capacity of 2 lakh square feet, to process and store all the transactions – voice or text – that goes via Sify’s IP network.

Presently, the company’s revenues are more leveraged from the managed network and ICT services that it provides to its corporate and enterprise customers. The share of corporate services in the company’s revenues has gone up from 55% to 70% over the past three years, while that of retail service has gone down from 39% to 21% in the same period of time.

“But, when triple play (voice, video, data) is allowed using internet protocol, as it is using mobile telephony today, we will have our network and data centers all ready to expand operations in the consumer market,” Mr.Mathur said. The company has been providing VoIP services for international calls as well as the BPO industry. It presently has 150 BPO customers, doing 100 million minutes of voice calls annually. It also provides virtualisation, cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS) applications and solutions to its clients.

Orange Bags 2 Asia Pacific Awards

From www.efytimes.com

Monday, June 08, 2009:  Orange Business Services, France Telecom Group’s division for worldwide enterprise services, has been named Managed Service Provider of the Year as well as Data Communications Service Provider of the Year at the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards. This is the second time in three years that Orange has been named Data Communications Service Provider of the Year.

The awards recognise the company’s commitment to Asia Pacific and its focus on the business needs of its multinational enterprise customers. Orange Business Services recently enhanced its next-generation converged IP network in Asia Pacific to deliver greater coverage, capacity and performance to its customers. It integrates future-ready innovations like Multicast, IPv6 and Telepresence, as well as in-the-cloud application acceleration and security.

Commented Yee-May Leong, senior vice president, Asia Pacific, Orange Business Services, “The awards reinforce our leadership in the Asia Pacific market that is built on strong commitment to our customers and service excellence. We continue to invest in network expansion, technical expertise and innovative solutions to meet enterprise needs for greater cost control and rapid presence anywhere, anytime as the business requires.”

Nitin Bhat, senior vice president, ICT, Frost & Sullivan, Asia Pacific, added, “Orange Business Services undoubtedly has one of the most extensive network reach and strongest network backbones in Asia Pacific. The company’s robust network, complemented by its equally extensive global presence, dedicated 3,000-strong workforce in Asia-Pac, and strong suite of managed service offerings ensure that the company is able to deliver seamless and exceptional service and business value to its customers.

Orange Business Services was measured against its competitors on a variety of actual market performance parameters, market share and growth in market share, leadership in product innovation, next-generation service strategy as well as breadth of products and solutions

 

WiMax services: BSNL invites bids afresh

Thomas K Thomas on The Hindu Business Line on June 6, 2009

New Delhi, June 5 Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd on Friday invited bids afresh from private players to roll out WiMax services on a franchisee basis.

The PSU floated a new tender after it scrapped the earlier one to rope in a strategic partner.

The earlier tender ran into rough weather after it was discovered that five of the six bidders shortlisted by the PSU existed only on paper. The five companies had identical corporate information including contact address, contact person, e-mail id, and lawyer.

BSNL’s technical committee had disqualified global companies including Cisco and Soma Networks even as it chose to keep the bids of the five firms.

Political parties, including the BJP, had alleged corruption at the highest level. The issue had also caught the attention of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Tender norms

BSNL has now invited bids in 16 circles giving another opportunity to the international companies. The tender documents will be available from June 12. The technical bids will be opened on August 4. Companies with a turnover of over Rs 100 crore for two consecutive financial years can apply. The franchisee company will have to invest in setting up the WiMax network. The company offering the highest revenue share to BSNL will be selected.

BSNL had earlier selected Soma Network on a pilot basis for Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Therefore there will be no competitive bidding in these three circles. The PSU is also in the process of issuing another tender for buying 7000 WiMax base stations to set up community service centres in the rural areas.

Cost reduction

The State-owned company is increasingly adopting the franchisee model to reduce costs. It is already offering IPTV services with HFCL on revenue-sharing basis. The PSU has invited bids from private players to set up Internet Data Centres (IDC) in various parts of the country on a revenue share basis.

The centres are expected to be set up over the next six months after which the PSU will go after outsourcing contracts for services such as web hosting, co-location, data warehousing and Internet managed services.

Tata Comm Wins Award For Telepresence Managed Service

From www.efytimes.com

Friday, June 05, 2009:  European CEO has named Tata Communications as ‘Telepresence Managed Service Provider of the Year 2009’. The CEO recognised that since launching their managed telepresence service in July 2008, Tata Communications has been leading the industry with their innovative and comprehensive strategy.

Tata Communications is the first provider to open public telepresence rooms, with a global network of public telepresence rooms which customers can access on a pay-per-use basis. Starting with four public rooms in India, their coverage has expanded to ten rooms: Mumbai, Bengaluru (2 rooms), Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, London, Boston, Manila and also Santa Clara, California (Cisco location). Tata Communications plans to expand their global network of rooms by the end of 2009.Tata Communications will be also launching its global meeting exchange services later this year. This will enable meetings between any two telepresence rooms subscribed to the service, regardless of the network service provider.

Claude Sassoulas, head, Europe, Tata Communications, said, “This is a validation from European CEO on behalf of their judging panel that we have a ground-breaking service that is a comprehensive solution for their business requirement.”

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