Getting future perfect, the VoIP way

As the government of India opens its floodgates for the VoIP on April 1, its time for companies to get future perfect. One such company is Hyderabad-based Grand Atlantic, which is all set to foray into VOIP space.

The company is going to introduce a number of initiatives and services within the sub-continent over a period of two months time. The company has chalked out plans to introduce a number of services targeted at the huge Indian market ready for the VoIP boom. Cyber News Service spoke to R Sudheer Reddy, President, Grand Atlantic about the VoIP scenario and the company's initiatives, which are underway.

What are the opportunities that are going to open up once the government kick-starts the VoIP scenario in the country?

Internet telephony is all set to open up with the TRAI recommending the opening of the sector from April 1, 2002. In its recommendations to the government, the telecom watchdog has favored two types of services, toll quality and less than toll quality. The move would help lowering of charges for long distance communication both for STD and ISD.

The regulator has also suggested two tariffs, one for toll quality and another for less than toll quality. TRAI has said that telephony services would cover application services, which subscribers would avail from personal computers.

The services include PC-to-PC connections within and outside the country, PC to phone connections both in India and abroad along with IP-based terminals. It has recommended existing facility based operators like basic service operators be allowed to deploy voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) base backbones for providing various services as specified in their licenses.

To allow greater flexibility to operators and customers, operators have been permitted to offer less than toll quality service with degradation in voice quality by engineering separate VoIP backbone. The quality of service for less than toll quality has been fixed in the range of three to four on mean opinion score scale while the same has been fixed at a minimum of four for toll quality services.

What is the role of Grand Atlantic in the VoIP arena and what are the products that you are going to offer?

We are going to play a major role in the VoIP space. We have a number of products and applications targeted at different market segments, all ready for the government's nod at the VoIP issue. First on the list of the services is - Hotline, which is targeted at the NRI community within the country. With the help of this facility a user would be able to call in India from any part of the world or make calls from India to anywhere in the world and speak for hours at any time and for any number of times.

The company will install its equipment free of cost at the user end. The equipment contains a digital signal processor and embedded software. 'A user will just need to sign up for the program by paying a fee of $555 and in India the cost at the user end will be around Rs 700 per month'.

The company is going to introduce its Hotline service in the next month. It has devised four different plans for four different situations depending upon the connectivity in India and overseas. 'Wherever needed we are ready to put our equipment free of cost to those who subscribe for this services'.

In addition to this, the company is also going to unveil another program aimed at the Indian PCO community. Billed as Doorvani, the program envisages providing a VoIP device replacing PC, thereby make every PCO booth in the country a virtual international calling station. With the help of a program like this STD booth owners can gain a competitive edge over the cyber cafes in facilitating VoIP calls and even offer conference calls that cannot be processes by a cyber café.

There are more than 7.5 lakh PCO booths within the country, and our aim is to make all of them a one-stop-shop for all the VoIP-based services and applications. This will increase the revenue streams of the PCOs to a considerable amount.

What is there in the offing for the corporate segment?

For the corporate space we are going to offer - Voxfree, another VoIP-based service targeted towards the SOHO, SMEs, corporate and various government agencies to make a virtually free voice network connecting all their branches across India and the globe. Here we are going to offer VoIP gateways of multiple capacity ranging from single port to 16 ports and more.>As the government of India opens its floodgates for the VoIP on April 1, its time for companies to get future perfect. One such company is Hyderabad-based Grand Atlantic, which is all set to foray into VOIP space.

The company is going to introduce a number of initiatives and services within the sub-continent over a period of two months time. The company has chalked out plans to introduce a number of services targeted at the huge Indian market ready for the VoIP boom. Cyber News Service spoke to R Sudheer Reddy, President, Grand Atlantic about the VoIP scenario and the company's initiatives, which are underway.

What are the opportunities that are going to open up once the government kick-starts the VoIP scenario in the country?

Internet telephony is all set to open up with the TRAI recommending the opening of the sector from April 1, 2002. In its recommendations to the government, the telecom watchdog has favored two types of services, toll quality and less than toll quality. The move would help lowering of charges for long distance communication both for STD and ISD.

The regulator has also suggested two tariffs, one for toll quality and another for less than toll quality. TRAI has said that telephony services would cover application services, which subscribers would avail from personal computers.

The services include PC-to-PC connections within and outside the country, PC to phone connections both in India and abroad along with IP-based terminals. It has recommended existing facility based operators like basic service operators be allowed to deploy voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) base backbones for providing various services as specified in their licenses.

To allow greater flexibility to operators and customers, operators have been permitted to offer less than toll quality service with degradation in voice quality by engineering separate VoIP backbone. The quality of service for less than toll quality has been fixed in the range of three to four on mean opinion score scale while the same has been fixed at a minimum of four for toll quality services.

What is the role of Grand Atlantic in the VoIP arena and what are the products that you are going to offer?

We are going to play a major role in the VoIP space. We have a number of products and applications targeted at different market segments, all ready for the government's nod at the VoIP issue. First on the list of the services is - Hotline, which is targeted at the NRI community within the country. With the help of this facility a user would be able to call in India from any part of the world or make calls from India to anywhere in the world and speak for hours at any time and for any number of times.

The company will install its equipment free of cost at the user end. The equipment contains a digital signal processor and embedded software. 'A user will just need to sign up for the program by paying a fee of $555 and in India the cost at the user end will be around Rs 700 per month'.

The company is going to introduce its Hotline service in the next month. It has devised four different plans for four different situations depending upon the connectivity in India and overseas. 'Wherever needed we are ready to put our equipment free of cost to those who subscribe for this services'.

In addition to this, the company is also going to unveil another program aimed at the Indian PCO community. Billed as Doorvani, the program envisages providing a VoIP device replacing PC, thereby make every PCO booth in the country a virtual international calling station. With the help of a program like this STD booth owners can gain a competitive edge over the cyber cafes in facilitating VoIP calls and even offer conference calls that cannot be processes by a cyber café.

There are more than 7.5 lakh PCO booths within the country, and our aim is to make all of them a one-stop-shop for all the VoIP-based services and applications. This will increase the revenue streams of the PCOs to a considerable amount.

What is there in the offing for the corporate segment?

For the corporate space we are going to offer - Voxfree, another VoIP-based service targeted towards the SOHO, SMEs, corporate and various government agencies to make a virtually free voice network connecting all their branches across India and the globe. Here we are going to offer VoIP gateways of multiple capacity ranging from single port to 16 ports and more.

The gatekeepers offered by the company can handle more than 600 locations across the world and could prove to be a boon for the corporate world where they have operations in multiple locations. The equipment is unique in the sense that it could be deployed in Intranet as well as the VSAT-based networks.

The company has already tied up with a number of international gateway companies and is in the process of setting up its own gateways all across the globe. We are going to set up 20 gateways mainly at those places which have a sizable number of Indians like US, Middle East, Brazil, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Cairo, etc. The gateways are likely to be operational by June.

As far as VOIP is concerned, it is going to attract a number of eyeballs, how do you plan to take the competition in the near future?

The company's products are made out of components being made in different parts of the world from US, Germany, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. As of now we are facilitating the components from the foreign countries but within three months we are going to start our own assembling unit at Hyderabad and then we will Indianise the products according to the needs of the Indian market.

We are not worried about the competition as we are timing our activities very well. The products offered by the company are going to be much cheaper than any other company because we are going to assemble all our products within the country and that would be an added advantage in our favor. For establishing itself firmly in the Indian VoIP market, the company is planning to invest more than $6 million over a period of next two to three years.

How are you going to market these products within the country?

In India the company is looking out for dealers and channel partners who can aggressively market the products developed by the company into the Indian market at a fast rate. Basically, we are looking at those people who have a basic knowledge of IT and who can join us in our effort to entrench ourselves in the Indian scenario.

To start with, we are looking at a dealer in each of the major and important cities within the country. We are also in the process of getting our offices placed in each of the metros. Within six months we are going to have our presence in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkota, Bangalore, Chennai, and Ahmedabad. We will continue to do the direct marketing as well as push our VoIP products through our distributors.

The gatekeepers offered by the company can handle more than 600 locations across the world and could prove to be a boon for the corporate world where they have operations in multiple locations. The equipment is unique in the sense that it could be deployed in Intranet as well as the VSAT-based networks.

The company has already tied up with a number of international gateway companies and is in the process of setting up its own gateways all across the globe. We are going to set up 20 gateways mainly at those places which have a sizable number of Indians like US, Middle East, Brazil, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Cairo, etc. The gateways are likely to be operational by June.

As far as VOIP is concerned, it is going to attract a number of eyeballs, how do you plan to take the competition in the near future?

The company's products are made out of components being made in different parts of the world from US, Germany, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. As of now we are facilitating the components from the foreign countries but within three months we are going to start our own assembling unit at Hyderabad and then we will Indianise the products according to the needs of the Indian market.

We are not worried about the competition as we are timing our activities very well. The products offered by the company are going to be much cheaper than any other company because we are going to assemble all our products within the country and that would be an added advantage in our favor. For establishing itself firmly in the Indian VoIP market, the company is planning to invest more than $6 million over a period of next two to three years.

How are you going to market these products within the country?

In India the company is looking out for dealers and channel partners who can aggressively market the products developed by the company into the Indian market at a fast rate. Basically, we are looking at those people who have a basic knowledge of IT and who can join us in our effort to entrench ourselves in the Indian scenario," he added.

To start with, we are looking at a dealer in each of the major and important cities within the country. We are also in the process of getting our offices placed in each of the metros. Within six months we are going to have our presence in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkota, Bangalore, Chennai, and Ahmedabad. We will continue to do the direct marketing as well as push our VoIP products through our distributors.