ip.access setups R&D center in Pune

MUMBAI, INDIA: The UK-based ip.access Ltd., the developer and manufacturer of picocell and femtocell infrastructure solutions, after bagging Bharti Airtel as first major client in India earlier this month, has now setup a dedicated research and development center (R&D) in Pune.

According to Philip Rimell, ip.access’ COO, the company has setup a dedicated R&D center in Pune in partnership with Quickstart Global, a global business services company.

“Quickstart Global will help to provide technical staffs to the company which will help rapid expansion and in driving out new products and developments across markets. At present, we have 20 staffs and look to increase it to 40 by the year end. And we expect this number to get double in the next two years,” Rimell told CyberMedia News.

Most companies have setup R&D base in India mainly to leverage the available talents at low cost to carry out customization of products and solutions, but Rimell has a different view on this. He pointed out, “The Pune R&D facility is more on adding core development capabilities and functionality and not for customization.”

Though the company didn’t reveal any financial details of its Pune facility, it is considering the center a key to drive innovations, future technologies and products.

“We are expecting about 50 per cent of R&D work from the Pune center in the next one year,” Rimell said. Overall, the company has 200 staffs globally out of which 110 are its R&D engineers based in the UK. 

In addition, Aricent and Sasken, the two Indian firms, has been providing off-the-shelf software components to ip.access for its hardware and software such as picocell and femtocell infrastructure solutions for GSM, GPRS, EDGE and 3G. Moreover, Cisco has manufactured femtocell for AT&T using ip.access’ technology.

ip.access has a range of picocell and femtocell for 2G and 3G platforms for mobile operators, which are manufactured in Mexico and China. It is expecting to supply 3000 units of devices to Bharti Airtel for five telecom circles in the first phase of the deal, according to Rimell. He added in later stages, the telco will deploy devices in remaining circles.

These devices help users to get more coverage and spectrum in hand to reach locations both indoor and outdoors where there’s low or lack of signals or connectivity.

By connecting physically to any broadband Internet connection with a minimum 256 Kbps speed, the devices allows the operators in providing customers with full coverage and mobile signals for voice clarity and data services. It works using satellite backhaul through a combination of IP and cellular technologies, which lowers operators’ cost with increase in coverage and capacity of mobile networks. 

At present, there are no such devices available in the market which can work on Wi-Fi Internet access. “Picocell and femtocell need a physical connectivity; however, to develop devices that can work on Wi-Fi, you need to innovate new technology and for such innovative work the Pune development facility can play a key role in future,” Rimell commented.

While, some big telcos have announced the roll out of 3G by this year end, one could expect more business for companies such as ip.access. But that’s not the case as Rimell explained that during the initial years of 3G in India, most operators will be on a number of trials and pilots.

“After initial two years, there’s a good chance for demand of devices,” he opined. The Cambridge headquartered firm shipped around half a million devices to 55 customers world over the last year. AT&T in US, T-Mobile in UK and Bharti Airtel here are some of its major customers.