Chiseling talent in broadband and cable industry

MUMBAI: Internet and cable industry’s tremendous growth has led to a high demand of trained and qualified technicians and engineers in India.

With a view to fulfill the demand, YOU Telecom India Private Limited, the digital cable and broadband service provider, has setup its own training hub named YOU Academy, at Baner on the outskirts of Pune. According to YOU Telecom, the academy aims to train and upgrade the scientific knowledge of its own technical staffs including the technicians and engineers.

In addition, it focuses on fulfilling the demand of technical staff in the growing Internet and cable industry. Further, it’s a residential academy, where the candidates are trained on latest broadband and cable technologies.

Here, they get trained on ‘live setup’, that is a miniature network infrastructure is used for training and work experience purpose.

The course duration is from one week up to two months, depending on the modules and training levels. Presently, the training is offered in four modules, right from the entry level for fresher, mid-level for working technicians and high level for the engineers.

The candidates are instructed with theoretical as well as practical knowledge and technical guidance. So far, the academy has trained about 25 batches comprising 10 individuals.

The company has procured a miniature network infrastructure from Motorola, which resembles a live network environment.

It’s the same used by Motorola at its Bangalore training center.

According to YOU Telecom’s CTO, A K Sekhar, the main purpose was to upgrade and train our own staff keeping in view the newer technologies in the broadband and cable-broadcasting field. “And then we thought to keep the academy open for not for our own staffs but also for other people working in the industry,” said Sekhar.

“Our colleges and institutes do have courses on telecommunications and even private institutes offer basic level knowledge about networking and cables. However, there’s a huge demand of trained technicians and engineers specifically for the broadband industry here,” explained Sekhar.

The former Motorola’s country sales manager added, “In India, there are no courses available on broadband technology. Such courses are available in USA. Hence, the YOU Academy is part of our own human resource (HR) activity, which help our needs as well as the industry.”

Further, Sekhar informed that though they have technical expertise, they are partnering other firms that are proficient in delivery skills and will help in developing the course materials in better way.

While, the Pune facility is dedicated for courses on broadband technologies, the company has set up another training center specifically for the cable operators, technicians and related engineers at Marol in Mumbai’s western suburb Andheri.

It’s mainly because of the large base of cable operators and industry in Mumbai. Along with broadband, YOU Telecom offers cable television such as ‘On Demand’ services via set top box with the help of local cable operators.