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CyberMediaNews: Nortel is into all the 3G technologies. Which of those do you focus more on?
Malur Narayan: Nortel has always been neutral from the technology perspective. We have been supporting both CDMA and GSM since the early Nineties. Going forward we will be present in all the 3G technologies.
CMN: You have a Joint Venture (JV) with LG. What would it achieve?
Malur Narayan: LG Electronics and Nortel formed a joint venture (LG-Nortel Co. Ltd) to offer leading-edge communications and networking solutions in the wireline, optical, wireless and enterprise markets in South Korea and the rest of the world. LG and Nortel have been selected to deploy HSDPA/WCDMA networks for KTF and SKT. The JV is strategic for us because Korea is a very advanced market in terms of technology adoption. The JV gives us not only the access to the Korean market, but also allows us to understand the consumer behavior and applications.
CMN: Nortel has won fewer deals compared to others in the wireless markets in India. Will it mean a limited opportunity for Nortel in the future?
Malur Narayan: The cellular market in India has been in existence for almost nine years. Yet, the mobile penetration is around 6 percent and the market is quite open. It is still a long way to go compared to China. So the winners are not yet decided. In the early days, Nortel did not have a significant presence in GSM and that probably hurt us initially. But we have won some contracts now and are working on a few more. There is still a lot of potential in India.
CMN: Will the operators migrate to 3G service provision with their existing vendors?
Malur Narayan: 3G is fundamentally a different technology. So the markets are wide open. For example, in the Europe, we were not with many operators of GSM. But a lot of them when they started 3G services bought Nortel solutions. The reason, one is going from GSM, fundamentally a TDM technology to WCDMA, which is a CDMA-based. The transition is not easy to make. It is a fairly big upgrade exercise unless one bought dual mode base stations. Majority of the sites installed in India are not dual mode and they will have to upgrade their sites one by one. It is as good as signing a new vendor. We use this technology discontinuity to position ourselves in 3G. We have been very successful in the Europe and North America and India will be no different.
CMN: What is the edge that you have in 3G?
Malur Narayan: 3G and 4G technologies are more about data. Compared to the traditional cellular vendors, Nortel is one of the strongest players from the data perspective. We have a strong IP core, data technologies, and years of experience on the access/RF side. Together, it gives us a unique combination to offer advance features to the operators in the 3G to enable them to be more efficient and offer better value added services.
CMN: Which 3G technology will prevail in India?
Malur Narayan: CDMA in India is between Reliance, Tatas, BSNL and MTNL. Even though their (CDMA) market share is very small, the growth of the subscribers has been very strong. They are adding about 700-800 thousand subscribers every month. It’s an incredible pace and it is really going to succeed in rural India as well. There is still a strong place for CDMA and that is not going to go away. And many of the operators are looking at EVDO etc. to provide broadband through CDMA. WCDMA, obviously, is also going to have a spot as many of the GSM operators are looking at migrating to this. The roll out for that will little bit slower than 3G CDMA roll out. As for WCDMA, a lot will depend on the spectrum. Also the cost of migrating from GSM to WDCMA will be generally more than that compared to migrating from CDMA 1x to EVDO.
CMN: What would be your strategy for 3G wins in India?
Malur Narayan: We have a strong position in the carrier segment on the optical side as well as the enterprise side. Out strategy would be to build on some of the successes we had in India both from the enterprise and carrier perspective. We will continue to focus on both CDMA and WCDMA. There are still operators who are keen to go on the CDMA part and there are operators who are looking at new partners in WCDMA. So we are going to work on that. Another major element that will come into play is the WIMAX. There are different type of customers who are coming to us like the Defence, Government, ISPs, and community agencies, who want to build mini networks for social or 911 type of service. I think WIMAX is going to be a very interesting change, as even though the mobile penetration is 6 percent in India, the Internet penetration is less than 1 percent. If e-government kind of activities proliferate and the government puts in more broadband initiatives and gives incentives to build broadband in rural areas, WIMAX will have a very important role. We have six-nine month leadership on that. With the LG JV product, the WIBRO product and we are also going to have our 802.16 E product--the WIMAX full mobility, which will be truly leading edge and can serve a lot of markets like India.
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