Mr. PRADHYUMNA T. VENKAT, CEO, Energy & Utility Business, Gemini Communication Limited

With the acquisition of Point Red technologies, Gemini Communications has become India’s only 4G manufacturing company. The company’s product portfolio includes a variety of solutions for networking, security, storage, supervision and IT services apart from being accredited and certified by WiMax forum. Gemini Communications has successfully diversified into RFID product manufacturing and Energy & Utility Sector. Mr. PRADHYUMNA T. VENKAT, CEO, Energy & Utility Business, Gemini Communication Limited, has played a vital role in driving this thriving diversification. The following is a Q&A excerpt with him.

Qs. 1: How much potential do you envisage in the Energy & Utility Sector?

Today, India can well be identified as an energy guzzler. The demand for power is growing exponentially and the scope of growth of this sector is immense. India's grid-connected power generation capacity will need to scale from 148GW currently to 460GW by 2030. Undoubtedly, renewable energy appears to be the most plausible option for the country to rely on.

India has tremendous potentialities to harness the much-needed energy from renewable sources and considered as one of the ideal investment destinations for renewable energy equipment manufacturers and service providers. Wind energy has posted the highest growth. India could become top player in world's solar market.

As energy and utility service prices rise, increasing numbers of consumers are looking for ways to manage the amount of money spent on electricity, gas and water. Utility companies have no way to know how much electricity, gas or water customers use in real time. They cannot tell what the maximum peak amount of electricity, gas or water was used nor can they develop a corollary between time of service use and amount. Energy Accounting and Management is extremely critical for utility companies to identify & stop energy losses & pilferages and also ensure effective energy distribution management. Smart & Intelligent grids are the need of the hour and will be on the radar of every other utility company.

Qs 2: From Transforming into a 100 crore company & acquiring Veeras Infotech to Energy Solutions business, what were the challenges you faced during this remarkable journey?

Gemini’s ability to adopt niche technologies early in the game has catapulted it to a higher growth trajectory today. The metamorphosis from a system integrator to a technology infrastructure enabler has come about via a constant endeavour to identify, adopt and nurture innovative platforms and convert them into engines of growth. At every stage of growth in our 16 years of successful business operations, we innovated, guided & delivered significant value in every form and substance.

Qs 3: Which in your opinion, has greater potential to penetrate the entire nation – Wimax or 3G? When do you anticipate the coming of 3G?

WiMAX is being deployed at a steady pace worldwide and will try to grab major customers in the market. Operators worldwide and in India are doing LTE trials. When used primarily for a handheld device with cellphone functions, LTE is at a considerable advantage given that it addresses various business cases for a operator such as Retails, enterprise and mobile customers.

All the telecom operators in India are still busy with their 3G roll-outs and promotions and they are still not able to see the real 3G impact, the other technology players are hopeful that the more advanced 4G will be here soon. Both LTE and Mobile WiMAX promise unprecedented download speeds that blow current 3G cellular networks out of the water. So the race is on, and there is bound to be substantial consumer confusion as 3G and 4G solutions begin to compete with each other. For users, 4G has a clear advantage over 3G in terms of higher bandwidth & speeds along with Quality of Service (QoS), richer user experience, while for operators the 4G advantage is the economics of roll-out as well (not to mention the lower cost of spectrum as compared to 3G) as its ease of deployment on the existing infrastructure.

The 4G network is likely to be in India by mid of 2012, its introduction in mobile handsets will depend on devices that are economical & compatible.