Convergence India, an annual event for the South Asian ICT industry, propagates the convergence of delivery systems as the preferred platform for vendors, operators, service providers and IT companies. To address the demand for multimedia-rich communication devices, the event brings all related access technologies of voice, video and data under one roof. Technology vendors showcase products covering a wide spectrum of Telecom, Mobility, Broadcast, Cable, Satellite, Entertainment, Information Security and Information Technology industries.

The 18th Convergence India 2010 provided stimulus for the expansion, upgradation and modernization of networks to make broadband easily accessible in the urban, semi-urban and rural areas.

The event was inaugurated by Gurudas Kamath, Hon'ble Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Government of India. “It has always been in the forefront of our Government policy that the technological innovations should reach Aam Aadmi,” he shared at the event’s Opening Ceremony as Chief Guest.

The communications industry in India is on a robust growth path with innovative technologies and services giving rise to new business opportunities in the domestic market. Evolving with the environment concerns in the industry, the 18th edition of the event features a special Green ICT zone for businesses that are using the green approach to ensure sustainable growth.

The concurrent conference sessions discussed relevant topics against the changing backdrop of technological developments taking place in the communications sector.

Sessions focussing on WiMAX and Voice over IP solutions examined the best way to accelerate the spread of affordable, wireless technologies and pave the way for 4G in India. With the growing competition in the lucrative Indian market, communication devices along with their applications and services are gradually becoming cheaper and more accessible to the masses.

The Indian telecom industry has achieved tremendous growth consolidating a subscriber base of 560 million by the end of 2009. “By end-2010, we are hopeful of crossing our Eleventh Five-Year Plan target of 600 million connections – two years ahead of schedule,” shared Kamat. “Telecommunications have emerged as a springboard of ICT applications with economy-wide impact. A whole range of information-based industry applications have come up creating new sources of employment and earning,” he added.

It was brought to light that to serve the staggering numbers and needs, the industry needs to engage multiple communications modes such as Internet, TV, IPTV, 2G and 3G mobile services, community radio ,WiMAX, WiFi, etc. and exploit cloud services for an open university system.

Positioning ICT as a tool to bridge the urban-rural divide and create the spread of equitable economic development was the inaugural conference session – a roundtable discussion based on the theme “Digital Convergence – Empowering A Billion Lives”.

Communications companies are exploring the rural markets like never before in a bid to access two-thirds of the country’s population and maximize on the opportunities in this underpenetrated market.

Prasanjeet Khuntia
Country Manager
Tellabs
With the introduction of 3G and WiMAX, opportunities have opened up for Tellabs. Mobile penetration in India is still a long way to go, but despite that a lot of action is happening in both these spaces and Tellabs is banking heavily on the success of both these technologies with the help of service providers. Closely related to that would be the slowly-evolving Dynamic Optical Networking space. The fact that WiMAX is driving penetration into rural areas is also a good news for a company like ours which has seen a decade-long operation in this country. We are here to make lives easier. We are in continuous talks with operators directly and also discuss strategies for repositioning our products in the Indian market by understanding the requirements and needs of the customers.
Not only this, recently Tellabs has announced plans to acquire WiChorus and its breakthrough SmartCore mobile packet core gateway. The WiChorus acquisition expands Tellabs Mobile Solutions beyond mobile backhaul into mobile applications.

Samir K. Chatterjee
Managing Director
Rebaca Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
As a software development company, we offer cost-effective video conferencing and archiving solutions. The archiving solutions are an extension of the Video Conferencing solutions. We offer the scope of an interactive archive where the user can post any question of relevance and get it answered even if he/she has not been present at the time and place of the conference, i.e., posting queries offline. These solutions have been deployed in a number of states and have also been part of the e-governance initiatives employed by most of the State Governments. We also feel this particular initiative will be of real help in rural settings for disseminating information to the farmer community, play a big role in propagating education and also work wonders at the Gram Panchayat level.

Ramesh K. Murthy
GM - Plant Head
ITI Limited
Seeing the necessity and importance of Broadband connectivity in the country today, it has caught the attention of each and every vendor. Whether it is made available through WiMAX or any other equivalent technology, it is believed to have changed the rural connectivity settings and enabled easy reach to the rural masses of this country. We have a number of projects in hand for proliferation of WiMAX in the rural areas. Also, since we don’t have complete access to technology, a tie-up with a technology partner seems inevitable. By doing so, we would be able to further value add our offerings to our customers and also increase our bottom line. The Indian market for Broadband connectivity is growing at a faster pace, keeping information requirements of the rural areas in mind.

Mahendra Lalwani
Director
TelExcell Information Systems Ltd.
TelExcell is playing a pivotal role in delivering WiFi and WiMAX to the country for which it is associating with 300 system integrators, both big time and small time. Our prime mission is to bring these affordable technologies and products to the end-users and see that the technology benefits go to everyone in the country. BreezeMax is one of the products we are trying to heavily focus this year, which is poised to become a big brand in the country in the times to come. There are infrastructural challenges, but in spite of that you can see conscious efforts on our part to deploy broadband Internet on a massive scale in the rural areas.

J. Sathish Kumar
Director
MICROVILLAGE
Only recently, we had forged a partnership with an American company Digium. Its SWITCHVOX solutions is a set of Unified Communication solution, which have already been launched worldwide. To make these products available in India, we are working out an appropriate go-to-market strategy and planning roadshows and partner meets to build customer base in the country. Likewise, in the voice industry, we have partnered with brands like Grandstream which has products like IP phone and enterprise products, which focusses primarily on SMEs. GENBAND, another principal of ours, covers the requirement of service providers which is also related to IP voice and wireless products.

Jack Wang Jun
Vice-President
Maipu Communication Technology Co. Ltd.
Since we have started our Indian operations only three-four years back, we are looking forward to tying up with some key system integrators and local equipment suppliers in India. In the past one year of our operation in India, we have witnessed a slight change in the market scenario. Customers are seen going for products that are cost effective on the one hand and attuning to their requirements on the other. Though challenges are many, we have set ourselves a target of penetrating into this market with the best of solutions and services that serve our customers well. 

Roni Weinberg
Executive Vice-President & COO
RADWIN
Convergence gives us the platform and a good opportunity to showcase our products and understand the requirements of the market we are operating in. WiMAX is going to expand big time in India and though it happens to be delayed for two years now, it is soon going to take the country by storm after the licensing issues are settled. Ours being a company giving backup for WiMAX products, most of our backhaul products are tailored specifically for the Indian market.

Rajan Verma
Channel Sales Manager
Alvarion
Though we have been here in India for the past five years addressing the telecom market, our serious presence in the country has only been planned a year or two back. We want to have a pan-India presence as we are not a known brand in many parts of the country and so we would be banking on the participation in the prime IT and Telecom events to build this presence and credibility before the customers. Alvarion is focussed on rural connectivity, and being a WiMAX company, it is committed to taking this technology to these remote places, where connectivity has always been a thing of concern.