BANGALORE, INDIA: Digital world is expanding like never before and India is no exception. The country, which is one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world, will soon see a high demand for higher bandwidth applications with the advent of 3G.

Thus, the networking world is heading towards saturation owing to high Ethernet traffic and service providers are looking at a 'shrinking' growth.

Higher application has always been inevitable, it has just been a question of when and Juniper has answered the call. Only recently did the industry saw the entry of 10Gbit Ethernet cards. And now, Juniper has gone all the way to bring the industry's first 100 gigabit (100 GE) router interface card for its T1600 core router.

Animesh K Sahay, head, Telecom Business, India and SAARC, Juniper Networks, speaks to CIOL on this behalf. Excerpts:

CIOL: Trends say, 10Gbit Ethernet is still relatively in the early stages of adoption. So who will be the takers for 100GE cards?

Animesh K Sahay: The exponential rise in demand for telecom services in India, spurred by increased penetration of mobile services, is saturating networks. Adoption of data services and the advent of 3G are also driving the need for faster and more efficient service provider networks.

Adopting 100G would give service providers a definite edge over the others, as it is a long-term solution that addresses future needs. Juniper believes that the largest Tier-1 service providers will be the first ones to deploy the solution.

CIOL: What will drive this demand?

AS: As per the Cellular Operators Association of India, the total number of GSM subscriptions in India reached 306.4 million in May. As of June 1, 2009, India also has 100 million CDMA subscribers.

These figures indicate the increasing growth of mobile services. Broadband penetration, too, shows promising growth. Increased demand from subscribers for greater speeds and increased reliability will drive service providers to offer high-bandwidth solutions.

At the same time, despite additions to the base of users, ARPUs are declining. This, and the economic crunch, means that service providers are constantly looking for ways to lower total cost of operations. The 100GE interface substantially improves operating efficiency, helping SPs to achieve this.

The continued rise of Ethernet traffic in the metro and the access networks naturally means that more Ethernet is running through the core of service provider networks. Currently, the fastest Ethernet interface is 10 GE links.