India’s economic growth in the last five years is one of the fastest vis-à-vis other countries in the APAC region, including China. The growth has done many good things to the country. One: it has influenced the policy-makers to make the economic and industry policy more flexible. Secondly, it has brought immense confidence to the technology vendors to invest in the country. And, finally, the citizen-centric sectors including manufacturing, government, telecommunications, PSUs, retail, education, hospitality, healthcare, etc. have invested in technology. They have, in fact, leapfrogged technology to enable themselves and provide best of the products and services to the citizens. Those technology vendors
who have identified the sentiment of the country and brought in world-class technology include Cisco, Microsoft, Juniper, Trend Micro, IBM, Nokia, Motorola, UTStarcom, SAP, etc. The list will certainly go on.
The country has not matured in tele-penetration or broadband penetration compared to the neighbours like China, Japan and Korea, but we have already started talking about IPTV, IP Telephony, Video on Demand, telemedicine, etc. We are ready to skip technologies coming in between. Seriously, the whole country is agog about these new applications and ready to embrace. Most of the telecom service providers have already forayed into this space partnering with the leading MNC vendors like UTStarcom, Cisco, Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, Siemens, etc.
Among these vendors who have helped us to taste the gen-next applications, UTStarcom emerges to be the most aggressive and leading one. Fairly young vis-à-vis other technology companies, which came to India only in the first half of 2001, UTStarcom has sent a strong message to the competition with its tie-ups with MTNL, BSNL, Bharti-Airtel, etc. for broadband and IPTV.
The company started its operations in Gurgaon as the South Asia liaison office and very soon converted it into a branch office. Vijay Yadav, Managing Director, South Asia, UTStarcom, Inc., says, “Started in the year 2001, we have continued to grow faster than the industry average, and now we have a nationwide footprint of products and services.” UTStarcom India operations have grown to offer services to UTStarcom globally and has extension of Global R&D for Broadband in Gurgaon and Bangalore. It has established an Escalation Centre in Gurgaon for Asia-Pacific and an Engineering Centre in Mumbai. Vijay adds, “We have established incumbency and installed base with all the large national wireline operators as well as regional wireline operators like BSNL, MTNL, Bharti, Tata, Reliance, Shyam, HFCL, etc.”
“We are the clear leader in Broadband Data and Voice in the country with the largest installed base and market share for DSLAMs and (Multiservice Access Node) MSANs. Similarly, we have a position of leadership and leading market share in IPTV with installed base at Aksh/MTNL, and Bharti, plus a few more IPTV contract wins and trials which we hope to announce over 2008,” he adds.
Actually, UTStarcom’s came into limelight after it bagged the three years’ contract from MTNL deploy its RollingStream solution along with collaboration with Aksh Optifibre Ltd. Then, in the second quarter of 2007, the vendor won a contract to supply its industry-leading RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution to Bharti Airtel. The solution enabled the service provider to offer a completely new service to its customers consisting of live broadcast television, time-shifted TV and video-on-demand (VoD) bundled with the operator’s existing broadband and voice services, which could all be consolidated into a single bill and sent to customers at the end of each month.
Before that, the company had also pulled in an order with BSNL to lay out 1.3 million lines of UTStarcom’s industry-leading iAN-8000 multiservice access node (MSAN) solution in approximately 900 cities throughout India. UTStarcom's ADSL 2+-based broadband solutions enabled BSNL to offer new broadband-based, triple-play services such as video-on-demand (VoD), video multicast, VPN services, and high-speed Internet services across the country while providing the operator with network flexibility, scalability for innovation and a rapid return on investment.
Vijay maintains, “We have one of the first Ethernet Passive Optical Network (ePON) networks in the country, thus paving the path for Fibre based Broadband deployments. We now hope to establish similar level of leadership in NGN. Apart from India, we have installed base with Tier-I operators in the neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives and Bangladesh.”
Since its entry, UTStarcom has been focussed on Service Provider business and offers unique and innovative IP-based end-to-end networking solutions. Vijay says, “We are focussed on three core products, namely, Broadband, IPTV and NGN. Our differentiation lies in technology leadership and innovation and also the fact that we are focussed on IP-based networking solutions rather than having to protect legacy products or solutions.” “Our positioning in IPTV is quite unique, as we provide end-to-end single-window solution, but at the same time are open enough to interoperate with third-party encoders and DRM. We are uniquely positioned to offer complete Triple Play solutions to Service Providers,” he adds.
Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Alameda, California, UTStarcom is a global leader in IP-based, end-to-end networking solutions and international service and support. The company sells its broadband, wireless and handset solutions to operators in both emerging and established telecommunications markets around the world. UTStarcom enables its customers to rapidly deploy revenue-generating access services using their existing infrastructure, while providing a migration path to cost-efficient, end-to-end IP networks. The company has research and development operations in the United States, Canada, China, Korea and India.
UTStarcom is very clear in its goal and investing in the areas like Broadband, IPTV, and NGN. Of the three, the company has already established leadership position in two, i.e. IPTV and Broadband (DSLAM and MSAN, and Fibre based ePON), and hopefully should achieve similar success in NGN.
Vijay expects that the year 2008 will be a year for IPTV. Therefore, the company intends to move beyond Telecom Operators and extend its IPTV solutions to cable operators. The interactivity of IPTV coupled with ePON on top of Fibre based Cable plant makes a very powerful and compelling reason for cable operators to deploy IPTV, and offer Digital Quality, CAS, and other value-added services on TV like Video on Demand, Time Shifted TV, Gaming, TV Commerce, etc. He adds, “I think cable operators should have a serious look at IPTV and consider it as an opportunity for them to expand their service beyond simple broadcast. NGN too will contribute significantly to our growth in 2008, and following years.”
As a propagator of IPTV technology in India, UTStarcom also takes all the opportunities and platforms to propagate about this very technology. The company is seriously working on building an ecosystem of investors, partners, VAS providers, operators, SIs and developers to bring in this revolution of making the TV more interactive and personalized. Vijay expects that the revolution in TV media can only help bridge the digital divide because TV penetration is ten times more than PC in terms of homes, and many times more in terms of viewership. He adds, “Once we bring power of interactivity to TV, the power will shift from keyboard (PC) to button (on TV remote).”
In order to put all the plans in place, the company is also strengthening its HR. The company has over 250 people spread across three regional offices and multiple site offices across the country, and is expected to grow in line with its business growth, which till now has been faster than the industry average.
Finally…
With a business goal of bridging the digital divide by bringing interactivity, control, and choice to the TV and TV homes in the country, the company intends to help its customers to launch more and more of Triple Play Services (High Speed Data, VoIP, and IPTV) on DSLAM or Fibre based networks. And, at the same time, the company wishes to sustain its leadership in BB and IPTV and establish a strong foothold for our NGN products.
