NEW DELHI, INDIA:  India will be one of the leading Nextgen voice markets across the globe in the next few years. Carriers in the country have already drawn up plans for deployment of more than 14.9 million Class 4 Next Generation (NGN) ports and over 4.1 million Class 5 NGN lines.
 
These are findings of a report 'Carrier Nextgen Voice Networks in India' published by leading market research firm, iLocus. The report adds that an estimated volume of 1.23 million Class 4 softswitch and gateway ports have already been deployed for commercial use by carriers in India.
 
By 2012, iLocus, projects 18.9 million Class 4 and 17.6 million Class 5 NGN lines to be deployed in carrier networks in India on a cumulative basis, which translates into a revenue opportunity to the tune of $498 million between now and the year 2012.

This excludes allied Nextgen voice network solutions such as media servers, session border controllers and enhanced applications platforms.
 
BSNL, ZTE lead the fray
BSNL and Tata Communications have been pioneers in implementing NGN voice trunking networks relatively earlier compared to their telecom counterparts in India. BSNL recently swung into action with two major tenders involving 6.4 million Class 4 and one million Class 5 NGN lines.
 
BSNL's lead in Nextgen Voice network deployment, says the report, is equally reciprocated by large projects at Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and Vodafone.
 
ZTE, according to report, is the most deployed platform commanding a market share of over 71 percent, followed by NSN and Alcatel-Lucent.
 
Why traction towards NGN
Explaining the traction towards NGN networks by carriers in India, Jahangir Raina, CEO and director, Research at iLocus, speaking to CIOL, said the NGN voice equipment has established itself as a carrier grade technology and Indian carriers are taking cue from incumbent and other mainstream telecom carriers around the world who have deployed NGN voice technology.
 
"India has also seen an appreciable activity in this regard during 2008 and all seven major carriers have NGN voice projects underway.
 
"Carriers in India are deploying Class 4 NGN first. It is much easier to develop, upgrade or replace the trunk network as opposed to the access network since fewer services are involved and disrupted in the process," says Raina.
 
Raina, who has been tracking global telecom Industry for two decades now, says carriers across globe are making strategic transition to NGN as legacy TDM network equipments are reaching obsolescence and are not fully covered by support and maintenance contracts. 

Raina adds that China has a head start compared to rest of BRIC countries with regards to NGN deployments."
 
The NGN deployment in China started some four years ago. Brazil started around two years ago. India has seen an appreciable activity in this regard during 2007 and 2008", adds Raina.

India's slow march to NGN
Explaining as to why Indian carriers took little longer to make the transition as compared to global counterparts, Raina attributes the slow push to carriers still nursing doubts over the reliability and maturity of NGN voice gear.
 
"The substantial growth in telecom subscribers in India meant that carriers in India were busy signing up new subscribers and were not very sure about disruption to the services while putting them on the new network.
 
The reliability and maturity of NGN voice gear was therefore very important. Mature NGN voice technology has been around for only about three years now ", says Raina

Raina also adds that, while Indian telecom services have become affordable and carriers have been able to rake in record subscribers, affordability has been not been able to necessarily guarantee desirable ARPU for carriers.
 
"ARPU in India is substantially lower compared to ARPUs found in other countries. Carriers are now seeing NGN equipment have the ability to develop new services a lot quicker than in the TDM environment. 
 
"While carriers in India have to cater for new subscribers and keep a positive cash flow going, they have to install appropriate infrastructure that that lets them achieve those pointers and in addition help them shoot up that ARPU. ARPU can be increased by offering new services to high ARPU customers. That needs NGN equipment", says Raina.
 
Raina also attributes the push to NGN deployment to the increased volume of NLD traffic handled by Indian carrier networks.
 
"NLD traffic has risen manifold over the last few years, driven mainly by increase in the number of wireless subscribers and reduced NLD tariffs. Replacement of legacy switches is also a motivation for former incumbents BSNL and MTNL.

These two carriers have depreciated a significant proportion of their legacy switching infrastructure. At least about 10% of the switching equipment is reaching a point of obsolescence," concludes Raina