Expert View

October 24, 2002
CommWorks to emphasize on both GSM, CDMA

Kaushik Phukan

NEW DELHI -- Technology has changed the face of the world. Advances in communications have made the world smaller. CommWorks has blazed the trail on both these fronts with its array of innovative products, services and technologies. A 3Com company, CommWorks supplies access infrastructures and IP services platforms to network service providers around the world. With flexible multiservice hardware platforms and modular software components, the comprehensive CommWorks architecture makes it possible for service providers to integrate their existing infrastructures with innovative technologies to deliver an array of next-generation IP-based enhanced services to their customers.

Convergence Plus recently caught up with Vijay Yadav, country manager, CommWorks India, to find out more about the latest in the converged world, the company's products and its plans for the Indian market. Excerpts from an interview:

CP: Your company has been in the forefront of the communications revolution. Can you give us an overview of the market and how you have fared?

Vijay Yadav: The investment stages have differed across countries depending upon the regulatory scenario and built-up infrastructure. However, irrespective of the investment and network deployment cycle, globally the market has seen three major transitions:

• From wireline to wireless,
• From services meant for the masses to community specific services, i.e., from macro services to micro services, and
• Higher percentage of IP as the platform for connectivity and service creation.

These three transitions will continue in a vector form, as users look for mobility and rich, personalized services, thus driving the need for wireless and personalized communication management system using IP as the underlying transport/delivery mechanism. Service providers will adopt the best-of-breed rather than an end-to-end approach to achieve this goal.

India is currently at a stage where the basic infrastructure has to be built up for data and voice services, and an increase in teledensity will take priority over market segmentation. We will see higher deployments on wireless and IP-based services for building up the basic infrastructure, as compared to countries that are more communication infrastructure savvy, where the same technology approach is being taken to achieve market differentiation.

CommWorks saw the move toward wireless and IP services early and invested in building a robust platform for CDMA wireless delivering feature-rich IP services, thus enabling us to be a leader in this space. Similarly, our investment in SoftSwitch/IP telephony has paid rich dividends for us as highlighted by our leadership position in the SoftSwitch application market and the fact that service providers using the CommWorks SoftSwitch platform have surpassed 10 billion minutes of usage over VoIP. We move more than 10 million minutes a day using VoIP in one single network for national long distance application. It exemplifies the strength and experience we have in deploying large, long-distance VoIP networks.

CP: What are you doing on the micro-services front, world over as well as in India?

Vijay Yadav: Micro services and personalised communication management systems are essential to service segment and community specific communication needs. Instead of looking at each service as an appendage to the infrastructure, CommWorks has looked at building a framework and comprehensive architecture for delivering various services off the same platform using a service creation engine. This enables the service providers to easily and rapidly deploy new services by adding software or components without underlying changes in hardware.

Thus, service providers buying SoftSwitch for Class 4 trunking application have a ready infrastructure for applications like voice-mail, UMS, VoIP, IP-based call-centers and call conferencing. Alternatively, if a specific application like voice-mail is bought first, then the same infrastructure forms a building block for SoftSwitch components, thus enabling the service provider to easily deploy Class 4 trunking for long distance at a later date. Moreover, the architecture is media and protocol agonistic, i.e., service is delivered to the end user, irrespective of the change in access mechanism like wireline, wireless or broadband.

We are working very closely with various service providers to enable feature rich IP-managed services over wireline and wireless globally and in India. Globally, 16 of the top 20 service providers are CommWorks customers. Closer to home in India, six of the top six service providers are CommWorks customers.

CP: What are you providing on the IP telephony front for the Indian market? Do you see IP telephony hitting off in India? What are the main reasons for the market not picking up at the moment?

Vijay Yadav: We have worked very closely with service providers globally to deliver IP telephony solutions. Every service provider's business needs are unique, and the ability to customise our solutions to meet those needs with a solutions approach has been our core strength. We are clear leaders in Class 4 trunking application having deployed some of the largest VoIP networks globally. Various operators in 20 countries certify our SS7 signaling platform. Support for multistage calling and Class 5 functionality, coupled with the fact that apart from moving voice, our SoftSwitch forms the basic building block for enhanced services, creates a very powerful and compelling reason for large service providers to work with us.

We are in different stages of discussions, testing, and deployment of our SoftSwitch platform for Class 4 trunking and enhanced services application, with various service providers in the country. For example, one of the service providers in the country is already using enhanced services component of our SoftSwitch platform to deliver quality voice mail application.

IP telephony will do very well in India, especially for Class 4 trunking application. It has been only six months since deregulation of VoIP. Starting from concept to completion, six months to one year is the realistic timeframe one needs to deploy large, long-distance networks. Investments in VoIP are just about to flow in a big way.

The main reason for VoIP not hitting off instantly does not mean that it has failed in the country or that there was a lack of investments. It is simply a case of having unrealistic expectations to begin with. It was wrong to expect too much out of any service like Internet telephony (the way it is currently permitted in the country), which needed a $100 plus IP telephone or $500 plus PC to run. If the end user has to spend money to convert voice to packet and hand it over as packet to the network, without any commitment on quality, then why should he pay at all for the voice! Anyway, he is paying for dialup and Internet access. Such a service has to be free or near free, and that is what we have seen happening world over.

The only service that will do well in the country is the one which runs off a $5 to $10 black phone, where the service provider converts voice to packet and vice versa. That takes us back to my first point, i.e., Class 4 trunking for long distance will be the first successful VoIP service in the country. Technology vendors who deliver storing robust solutions for this application, coupled with ability to create new services rapidly, will do well in the country.

CP: The debate on CDMA and GSM has been going on for a long time. Which one do you think is a better technology and why? Can you elaborate about your GSM and CDMA products and its benefits? In fact, there are many companies in the market, who solely produce GSM and CDMA products. How do you plan to woo the customers?

Vijay Yadav: Why does it really have to be GSM or CDMA? Why not GSM and CDMA? Both have their pros and cons and can serve different purposes in a country like India that needs diverse forms of communication to reach the masses.

Having said that, CDMA has turned out to be a clear winner for high-speed data and 3G networks. The main reason is that 3G CDMA can run off the same frequency spectrum. This means it can run off the same network, and same equipment, making the move from 2G to 3G very simple, easy and economical. An interesting outcome is that there is hardly any room for 2.5G -- both in terms of application availability and time window. However, 3G on GSM is still some time away, and would need different frequency spectrum to run. At this point of time, we are market leaders for 2G data application on CDMA with more that 80 percent market share globally, and with all six operators in the country.

Similarly, CommWorks has provided data infrastructure for five 3G CDMA data networks deployed till date. We run 2G and 3G data applications off our total control platform that also forms the basic platform for wireline RAS and VoIP media gateway. For GSM on 2G, the same total control platform works as the access infrastructure for WAP application. We will keep watching the developments on 3G in the GSM space, and make our decisions as the market evolves.

CP: How important is security in the telecom world? How do your products ensure it? Please elaborate.

Vijay Yadav: The future will be governed by clicks and blips, as major decisions will be made based on information and the speed and accuracy with which it flows. A secure network that maintains coherency, accuracy and secrecy of this information will thus be a very critical factor. Our products on wireless and VoIP have necessary in-built interfaces for supporting CALEA and for lawful intercept, etc. We support open interfaces to work with industry standard security solutions.

However, while talking of security in networks, one often tends to ignore the security of individual end users. Being the originating or end point of a network facilitates desirable communication, but at the same time exposes an individual to certain "unwanted" or "undesirable" communication burden.

Thus, security of individuals and the facility that the network can provide to an individual to shield himself from "undesirable" communication is also an important aspect. A personalised communication management system (PCMS) thus becomes a very important and vital need of the end users of the network. CommWorks' SoftSwitch portfolio of enhanced services like voice-mail and UMS provide very robust and flexible solutions for PCMS, empowering each individual to communicate in a secure manner meeting his personalised communication profile.

CP: Are you planning to release any new products for the converged market?

Vijay Yadav: Our total control platform at the media access was designed for converged networks, both in terms of media access as well as service. It is a true multiservice, multiaccess platform supporting wireline and wireless as access mediums, and supporting voice, data and fax as multiple services. We have continued to build on this industry leading platform and developed solutions for SoftSwitch, IP telephony and enhanced services around this platform.

CP: What has been your focus for the Indian market and how do you plan to meet the challenges from your competitors?

Vijay Yadav: Our focus for the Indian market has been to deliver solutions by leveraging on our global strengths. Thus, over the last few years, our growth came from wireline RAS market. Whereas, for the current year and coming years, we will continue to consolidate our leadership position in RAS, and expect a majority of our business to come from wireless, SoftSwitch and enhanced services. We also plan to be in the core transport layer of the service providers' networks with our Gigabit router solutions. They are a right fit in this world of thick pipes needing faster routing, as the paradigm shift in routers takes place going from kilo pps to million pps routing, and going from megabit backplanes to gigabit backplanes.

We work closely with large service providers by design, and the niche markets we work in, we come from a position of strength and leadership. More than competition, our focus is on customising solutions to address the unique business needs that every service provider has.

CP: How important is the Indian market for your company and how much is the Indian market contributing to the worldwide revenue?

Vijay Yadav: India is one of our fastest growing markets globally and clearly a very strategic. We have invested in a technology center in the country that serves the dual function of being an extended arm of the global R&D center as well as the Level 3 escalation center for the entire Asia Pacific. This center is working on key technologies like wireless, VoIP and enhanced services, and continues to grow in line with our business in the Asia Pacific market.