Ericsson bets high on Regional Tech Centres

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Ericsson — one of the leading telecom equipment and solutions companies, is banking high on its Regional Technology Centres (RTCs) to cater to the growing operators' needs and 3G services, as well as upcoming BWA/TD LTE rollouts.

The company maintains four RTCs in the Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Gurgaon regions for network improvement and efficiency optimization.

Ericsson said that they focus on proactive engineering through these technical centres, which have cutting-edge innovations that include capacity optimization and automation.

RTCs highly scalable: Ericsson

The company also said that these RTCs are highly scalable, and have a capability to manage more base stations.

“With a focus on region-based network services, this is our unique effort. We have brought innovative tools and processes to serve operators under each individual region,” Girish Kadam, vice president, Global Services — Sales at Ericsson, told CIOL.

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“Today, operators are looking at vendors to manage active as well as passive part of their network, and we are geared up to take challenges with full-fledged solution,” he added.

Ericsson keeps hold on 120,000 base stations

Out of close to 500,000 base stations in the country, 50 per cent are being managed by vendors, while Ericsson keeps hold on 120,000 of them.

Kadam said this regional approach is a proactive way to facilitate 3G/4G and growing data services.

As part of network optimization, the RTCs initiate physical drives, wherein it sends technical people to streets to check call drops and recreate network.

“We constantly monitor the quality of service, and take steps to check subscriber impact and do geo-coding. RTCs also look at from where the demand is coming and monitor subscribers' patterns. We do take care of 3G in such a way that 2G couldn't get impacted, and also look at the network holistically,” said Jaspal Singh, senior director- Technical Engineering at Ericsson.

The company also have knowledge management framework in which information gets documented and shared between RTCs.

“These centres have automated process for data collection and acceptance for pre- and post analysis. These technical centers monitor health of the networks and identify high traffic areas and business opportunities for operators using RPMO (Real-time Performance and Measurement Operation),” said Singh.

Formed in 2009 to offer managed services for 2G, 3G and BWA/TD-LTE technologies to the pan-India telecom operators, the company said that its RTCs have various differentiators, such as Ericsson System Performance Analyzer (ESPA) and single tool for multi-vendor support, and performance and fault management.

Employing 300 individuals; planning to increase to 500

Ericsson's RTCs employ 300 individuals currently, while the company is planning to employ up to 500 people by the end of 2011. To a query, whether the company leverages current RTCs to neighboring countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, Ericsson said there is a possibility; however, it choose to refrain from any direct answer.