Airtel’s Exciting Independence Day Celebration Offer – Get 1000 GB Additional Data with Airtel Xstream Fiber Home Broadband Connection

As part of Independence Day celebrations, Airtel has rolled out an exciting limited period offer for customers opting for its Airtel Xstream Fiber Home Broadband. 

Airtel is giving 1000 GB FREE additional data with the purchase of a new Airtel Xstream Fiber connection. The limited period offer is applicable on all Airtel Xstream Fiber plans and is available to customers across all top cities* where Airtel provides Xstream Fiber broadband services.  

India is witnessing a massive surge in demand for quality home broadband as people work from home, children take online classes and OTT based digital entertainment grows.  

Airtel Xtream Fibre offers ultra-fast broadband with speeds upto 1Gbps and serve the requirements of multiple connected devices in today’s homes.  

The limited period offer of 1000 GB FREE additional data adds even more value to Airtel Xstream Fiber plans that start at just Rs 799/month and come with exciting Airtel Thanks benefits such as 12 months Amazon Prime membership and Airtel Xstream content plus Wynk Music. 

*Offer not applicable on unlimited data and prepaid broadband plans. 1000 GB additional valid for 6 months. 

Five Key Sectors That Will See A Transformation With 5G Technology

 

By Mr. Preetham Uthaiah, EVP - Marketing and Strategy, Saankhya Labs

The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a long lockdown, which has spurred a digital transformation in the economy. Education has gone truly digital with the advent of online classes and exams, doctors are providing consultations online, meetings are being conducted via video conferencing platforms and even international trade exhibitions have shifted to online webinars and events. As a result of this digital transformation, internet usage has surged extensively putting immense pressure on existing communication networks. A reliable and robust 5G communication network can help industries maximize this digital transformation. The SLA’s (service level agreements) and QoS (quality of service) that need to be met for some of the time-critical applications can be accommodated using 5G technology with some of its advanced features such as ‘Slicing’ and low latency communication that ensures that real-time communication happens without getting affected by the traffic loads.

Here are some key sectors that are bound to benefit from a 5G driven digital transformation -

1. Healthcare

The healthcare industry will immensely benefit from 5G networks. With increasing use of online consultations and tele-medicine, a reliable and faster connection is critical to effectively deliver remote healthcare services. The low latency and faster speeds which are a main feature of 5G will help in time critical telemedicine applications such as remote surgery and remote patient monitoring etc. Hospitals also transmit large amounts of patient data including large files like CT Scans and MRIs. Some hospitals like King’s College Hospital, UK; Sinchuan University Hospital, China and Samsung Medical Centre, South Korea are installing private Enterprise 5G solutions to support their IT networks.

2. Agriculture

In this emerging technological world, scientific farming techniques are being used to boost productivity in farms. These include use of Agri-IoT sensors for soil monitoring, water management, smart irrigation, crop health monitoring, drone-based farm management etc. Deployment of 5G networks will provide added benefit to manage these drones and get real time data from the sensors by effectively using the 5G networks

3. Construction

The real estate sector, which has for long been known for its offline operations, is set to transform itself with the advent of 5G technology. In its new avatar, virtual property tours using AR/VR technologies, as well as 3D printed models of homes will be a reality in aiding digital marketing and sale of properties. Powered by stable and fast networks with lower latency, 5G will also ensure the smooth functioning of various stages of the design process to include 3D architectural visualization and collaborative meetings with various stakeholders.

4. Auto

5G brings with it unprecedented speed and connectivity to make autonomous, or self-driving cars a reality. An autonomous car is expected to produce up to 25 GB data per hour. Current networks will not be able to handle such large volumes of real-time data. 5G networks will allow faster-than-ever communication and real-time data processing between vehicles, networks, infrastructure and even pedestrians.

5. Manufacturing

The manufacturing sector is becoming more and more autonomous. High speed connectivity is needed to monitor and direct robots working on the factory floor. Additionally, many factories are becoming more “smart” with IoT sensors being installed across the factory, sharing real-time updates to a central server. 5G technologies can provide network characteristics that are vital for the manufacturing industry. This technology will allow for increased flexibility, lower costs, and smaller lead times for layout changes and alterations at the manufacturing units, factory floor production reconfiguration etc. Large organizations like Worchester Bosch, Siemens, Ford Motors etc. are deploying enterprise 5G networks to streamline their operations. 5G is poised to aid manufacturing/production operations, helping them become more efficient, while also refining security and reducing maintenance and operating costs.

Hailed as an upcoming tech revolution, 5G promises advantages that will touch every aspect of our lives, from healthcare to education to products and services we buy and beyond!

Huawei Launches Digital Payment Cloud Solution at Better World Summit 2020

Huawei launched a new Digital Payment Cloud Solution recently at its Better World Summit 2020 designed to help digital payment service operators build super app centered payment ecosystems that will accelerate digital financial inclusion in emerging markets.

Ryan Wu, Director of Huawei Software Marketing & Solution Sales Dept.

“According to GSMA , mobile money today has over 1 billion registered users after more than 10 years of development,” said Ryan Wu, Director of Huawei Software Marketing & Solution Sales Dept. “However, merchant payment is still at its infancy. We all know that the key to success in the mobile payment business relies on the ecosystem. Super app is a critical platform and engagement point for ecosystem partners and provides an efficient merchant marketplace. Huawei’s digital payment cloud is designed to provide a payment platform and super app that helps mobile payment operators build an ecosystem quickly and efficiently.”

Huawei’s digital payment cloud solution brings value to payment operators from three aspects:

* Extremely Digital Experience: With the digital architecture, both user and transaction data can be opened in real time, ensuring real-time query experience for users and merchants. In addition, real-time risk control can be built based on AI analysis capabilities to identify fake transactions and avoid cash-out risks.

* Expedite Service TTM: With the open ecosystem, the solution provides API (application programming interface), H5, mini apps, and UI bricks technologies that  enable partners to launch the service on super app within one week and marketing campaigns from idea to launch within three weeks.

* Agile Iteration: With a cloud native platform, the solution supports container/micro-service, auto-scaling, grayscale release, and enables software updates in days.

In Myanmar, Huawei has cooperated with KBZ Bank to launch KBZPay and within 18 months successfully grew the service to six million registered users, over 1000 partners, and more than 290 thousand merchants. KBZPay’s transaction value has reached over $7 billion, cementing KBZ as Myanmar’s number 1 mobile payment service provider.

Huawei Ranks No. 6 Among World’s Most Innovative Companies 2020

Global leading ICT infrastructure provider Huawei has ranked No. 6 in BCG’s recent released list of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2020, moved up by 42 places. This is the highest ranking for the tech giant since it first made the list in 2012. According to the report by Boston Consulting Group, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Huawei occupy the top 6 spots in the new ranking, followed by Alibaba, IBM, Sony and Facebook.

The ranking is based on a survey of 2,500 global innovation executives and assesses companies’ performance on four dimensions of Global “Mindshare”, Industry Disruption, Industry Peer View and Value Creation. This year, BCG also added a new scoring dimension that captures each company’s variety and intensity of boundary breaking, by assessing its ability to breach established industry entry barriers and play in an array of markets outside its own.

As the world’s largest supplier of telecommunications equipment, Huawei has continuously invested over 10% of its annual revenue back into R&D. In 2019, the company’s R&D expenditure totalled CNY131,659 million, accounting for 15.3% of its total revenue. 

In terms of 5G, Huawei invested 4 billion USD in the past decade, which makes it the global leader in this next-generation technology. To further commercial adoption and promote new innovation in 5G applications, the company has established 5G joint innovation centers together with carriers worldwide.

According to its annual report, the tech giant is shifting itself from an innovation 1.0 model to Innovation 2.0, which means breakthroughs in basic theory and developing new basic technologies, driven by shared vision for the future.

In the global fight against COVID-19, Huawei doubled down its innovation efforts and launched the Anti-COVID-19 Partner Program that focuses on AI, remote office, smart healthcare and online education, to support the fight against the pandemic. Its AI-assisted diagnosis, for example, could output CT quantification results in seconds and help frontline medical staff detect COVID-19 cases.

“When we began the research for this 14th edition of BCG’s Most Innovative Companies report, COVID-19 had not yet emerged. As we explored the data and interacted with clients, however, it became clear that this year’s core findings—about the advantages of scale and the imperative for serial innovation—may be even more relevant today as innovation leaders need to adapt to rapidly shifting patterns of supply, demand, consumer behavior, and ways of doing business,” wrote the author of the BCG report.

Airtel Declares War on Service Failure and Targets Resolution of Every Customer Query

Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s largest integrated telco, is further raising the bar as part of its mission to deliver best-in-class services to customers.

Keeping consumer obsession at the core of its DNA, Airtel today said that it has set itself a target of answering and resolving every single customer query, learn quickly from failures and ensure they don’t get repeated. And the company is taking this message to customers across India through a bold multi-channel marketing campaign [‘watch it here https://youtu.be/Gqe3uJLLV3c].

The current times have put telecom services and reliable connectivity at the core of the daily lives of customers. Be it Work from Home, Virtual Classrooms, Online shopping, or Digital Entertainment, telecom networks have become the backbone for accomplishing most things from within the safety of our homes.

Consumer centricity has always been at the heart of everything that Airtel does, but during these testing times, the brand has realized that a network provider’s responsibility towards its customers has never been greater. Airtel acknowledges that it not only has the responsibility to provide access to high-quality telecom services but also to give answers to all their service related queries by responding and resolving them in a quick and transparent manner.

Says Shashwat Sharma, Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel, “The relationship between Airtel and its customers has never been more important, and to serve them even better we have decided to take our customer obsession to the next level. We know that "ZERO questions" is an IMPOSSIBLE utopian thought especially for a telecom brand, but that won’t stop us from trying because we know that the closer we get to ZERO, the happier our customers will be. We promise to be humble, learn every time we fail and be relentless in our approach. For us, this is not just a campaign, we are now re-engineering the entire organization towards this goal and are obsessed with building a culture of consumer centricity.”

The company has already taken big strides in this journey and these are some of its key recent initiatives to make sure that customers get the best possible service experience:

Network Technology: In the last three years, Airtel has invested over Rs 70,000 crores in high-speed network rollouts. Airtel has led the introduction of new technologies such as pre-5G Massive MIMO and Carrier Aggregation. The result is Airtel being consistently rated as India’s top mobile network by multiple experts.

More recently, Airtel became the first mobile operator in India to launch Voice over Wi-Fi to solve the indoor coverage issues faced by its customers. Today, millions of happy customers enjoy seamless indoor coverage over Airtel Vo-Wi-Fi.

For its busy postpaid consumers, Airtel’s launched Platinum Network. This gives its premium users priority in both network as well as services across their touch-points, so that network and telecom related issues don’t disrupt their hectic schedules.

Digital Gateways: To help customers recharge during COVID-19 lockdown, Airtel launched ‘Superhero’ - a first of its kind program that allowed Airtel customers to recharge the prepaid accounts of fellow Airtel customers through Airtel Thanks app. For every recharge, the Super-hero makes a 4% retail commission. This helped millions of customers who don’t have access to online recharge options or are not digitally savvy. Over a million Airtel customers are registered as Superheroes.

Culture of Customer Obsession: The Airtel Management Board meets every day in the morning to review customer queries, resolution mechanisms and timelines, and the learnings from customer feedback.           

Airtel’s new campaign will run across TV, Digital and Print to communicate the company’s promise to customers. The campaign has been conceived by Dentsu-Taproot, led by Pallavi Chakravarti and team. To watch the TVC click here https://youtu.be/Gqe3uJLLV3c.

One billion mobile users in India by 2015

India could have more than one billion mobile phone users by 2015, with the bulk of that growth in rural areas, one of the country's top telecom executives said on Wednesday.

Manoj Kohli, chief executive of India's biggest mobile phone group Bharti Airtel, told an industry conference in Hong Kong that his firm is aiming to almost double its customer base to 200 million people in the next few years.

"Achieving a billion plus (Indian mobile users) by 2015 is possible," he told the Mobile Asia Congress, the region's largest telecom industry gathering.

"The largest growth will happen in the rural market," he said, adding that pricing wars between providers were knocking down rates in the Indian market and making phones affordable to more people.

Competition in India has become even more aggressive as new players unleash deeper price cuts with innovative per-second billing plans that have pushed call costs down to less than a cent a minute.

"There is hyper-competition like no other place in the world," he said.

India is the world's second-biggest cellular market with more than 400 million users, lagging behind only China, which has over 600 million users.

Rural customers are also seen as key to growth in China, said Chang Xiaobing, chairman of China Unicom, one of the nation's three major telecoms operators.

The company aims to tap "vast rural areas" for growth as demand for basic mobile voice services slows in saturated urban markets, he said, with customers now looking for multi-function devices that can send emails or play movies.

"Voice is a mature market in some areas, but we still see some growth potential," Chang told the conference. "Voice will be in continuous demand (in China)."

But Chinese operators must boost their data business to offset falling prices on voice calls, he said.

Chang has said he expects Apple's iconic iPhone, which Unicom distributes, will be China's highest-selling smartphone despite disappointing results after its official launch this month.

Mobile connections in Asia Pacific are expected to cross the two billion mark this year, more than triple the level in 2003, according to statistics released by conference organiser GSMA, a mobile industry trade group.

Agencies

IT spending likely to fall 5.2% worldwide, says Gartner

The worldwide IT spending is on pace to decline 5.2 percent this year. However, the IT industry will return to growth in 2010, with IT spending forecast to total $3.3 trillion, a 3.3 percent increase from 2009, according to research firm Gartner. In Asia Pacific, IT spending is expected to grow by five percent to reach $515.6 billion in 2010.

Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President at Gartner and Global Head of Research, said that this represented a fast V-shaped recovery for IT spending in the region. Emerging regions will resume strong growth, he said. By 2012, the accelerated IT spending and culturally different approach to IT in Asia will directly influence product features, service structures and the overall IT industry.

However, growth varies considerably by country, vertical market and IT sector. Sondergaard said that while software would post the strongest growth in Asia Pacific, telecommunications still represented the largest area of IT investment.

In Australia, the five-year outlook for enterprise IT spending is a compound annual growth rate of 1.3 percent, with total IT spending by Australian businesses to reach Australian dollar 56.4 billion by 2013. The vertical sectors with the highest IT spending growth would be communications (3.2 percent), healthcare (2.6 percent) and utilities (2.3 percent). While IT spending will increase next year, Gartner cautioned IT leaders not to be overly optimistic.

"While the IT industry will return to growth in 2010, the market will not recover to 2008 revenue levels before 2012," said Sondergaard. 2010 is about balancing the focus on cost, risk, and growth. For more than 50 percent of Chief Information Officers the IT budget will be zero percent or less in growth terms. It will only slowly improve in 2011, he added.

Sondergaard said that the three most-searched terms by Gartner clients on gartner.com provide some clues as to the priorities of IT leaders around the world. Cost remained the most-searched term during 2009, although it peaked in May, followed by cloud computing. "Next year will be the year when cloud computing moves from the discovery phase to small pilots, as part of organizations' desire to move from owned to shared IT," he said.

The third most-searched terms on gartner.com were business applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM). "We believe that 2010 will see increased focus on optimization of business processes linked to software applications, what we call application overhaul. That is what will drive growth in the software segment," Sondergaard said.

Agencies

IDC says India's domestic BPO market to touch $6.82 bn

After establishing itself as a major player in the international BPO market, India is now set to shift focus on the domestic market, which is projected to grow at over 30% annually.

According to a report by IT research firm IDC India, the country's domestic BPO market, with nearly 500 players, will grow at a CAGR of 33.3% to touch revenues of $6.82 billion by 2013, up from $1.62 billion in 2008.

The report said the domestic BPO industry would evolve from just running isolated processes for customers to engaging more deeply in identifying and transforming core business processes.

"Positive market indicators of an economic recovery, unbundling of mega outsourcing deals and large unaddressed white spaces such as regional language services support the current optimism," the report said.

Currently, the BFSI vertical contributes the lion's share of 37% to the domestic sector's revenues, while telecom contributes about one-fourth to it.

Other verticals like utilities and services, energy, food and hospitality, aerospace and automotives, consumer durables and government contribute 17%, while the travel segment contributes 8% to the revenue.

Agencies

Accenture on a hiring spree in India; To hire 8,000 by 2010

Global technology and consultancy firm, Accenture has said that it is going to add around 8,000 people in India by the end of next year taking its total employee base in the country to 50,000.

"We are 42,000 right now and we imagine we will be about 50,000 by the end of 2010," said Accenture Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, William D Green on the sidelines of the India Economic Summit. Indicating a recovery from the global downturn, Green said the company will continue to focus in India, specially in the areas of analytics, reports a media.

Accenture's focus in India is going to be the analytics space, which will help its clients in converting information into insights for better yields. Green added, "We believe that analytics is going to be an important trend that our customers are going to demand from us. We think India is going to be a great place for us. We have some core centres of excellence in the analytics space in the country."

Accenture, which has annual revenue of $21.58 billion for fiscal 2009, will strengthen its focus on clients in pharmaceutical, telecommunications and energy in the country.

Agencies

80,000 engineers to be absorbed in IT sector by 2010

Software industry body, Nasscom expects at least 70,000-80,000 engineering graduates who passed out in June 2009 and were offered jobs in their 5th and 6th semesters by TCS, Infosys and Accenture, among others, to get absorbed by March 2010. Not too long ago, there were apprehensions that the appointments of these tech grads could get deferred till 2011 in the aftermath of the global slowdown. However, the perception appears to have changed.

Speaking to the media, Nasscom Vice-President Sangeeta Gupta said, "There's some amount of pick-up in IT spending and clients have become active in the decision-making process. This augurs well for the IT industry and is likely to result in hiring by IT companies. Companies like TCS, Infosys and Accenture, among others, are expected to start honouring the offers they made. As a result, at least 70k-80k engineering graduates, who were issued offer letters, are expected to get absorbed by March 2010."

For instance, the country's biggest software firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had made some 24,000 offers in 2008-09, according to its Q2 analyst call. The company had indicated that it would honour these offers this fiscal. In Q3, TCS is expected to absorb about 8,000-odd, and the balance, in the following quarter. Till Q2, the company had absorbed some 1,800 people.

Similarly, Infosys, in its Q2 earnings call, indicated that it would add 20,000 people instead of 18,000 indicated earlier. The additional 2,000 would be partly in BPO while the rest would make up laterals at Infosys Technologies.

Incidentally, Nasscom has urged member companies to recruit those who've completed their eighth semester to ensure that hiring is closer to the need of companies. For this fiscal, Nasscom has projected a mere 4-7 percent export growth. It is likely, that with IT sector showing signs of recovery, Nasscom will review the export target. "We can review the export target by end- December," she added.

McKinsey in its report titled 'Perspectives in the IT industry by 2020', has noted that with the current pace of reforms and expected constraints in talent and infrastructure supply, the exports component of the Indian IT industry is slated to reach $175 billion in revenues by 2020. The domestic component will contribute $50 billion in revenues by 2020, which is larger than the total export revenues for India now.

Agencies

Where is the $23-bn telecom Bharti-MTN merger heading?

The $23-billion deal for the merger of Bharti Airtel and South African giant MTN, which would have been the world's largest in the telecom sector, today fell through.

Sunil Mittal-led Bharti called off discussions with MTN citing the South African government's rejection of the proposed merger structure, which would have created the world's third largest telecom company with combined revenues of over $20 billion annually and a subscriber base of over 200 million.

The issue of dual listing of MTN to maintain its identity in the merged company appears to have been the deal-breaker during the tough negotiations lasting well over four months.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had strongly backed the deal which he took up with South African President Jacob Zuma at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh last week.

While announcing the calling off of the talks, Bharti in a statement expressed the hope that the South African government "will review its position in the future and allow both companies an opportunity to re-engage".

This is the second time in just over a year when Bharti has been forced to abandon talks for amalgamation of the two organisations in a complex deal that also hinged on Indian government's clearance for dual listing.

"This transaction would have been the single largest FDI into South Africa and one of the largest outbound FDIs from India," Bharti statement said, adding "the structure needed an approval from the government of South Africa, which has expressed its inability to accept it in the current form".

Senior management of Bharti, including Sunil Mittal, could not be reached immediately for comments as they are on a annual off-site, most likely in Pataya, Thailand.

After Bharti had called off negotiations with MTN last year accusing the South African entity of reneging on its commitment and presenting a different structure, Anil Ambani-led RCom had entered into negotiations with MTN for a deal.

This was also called off after Anil's elder brother Mukesh Ambani asserted the first right of refusal and

threatened a legal action. As per the proposed structure, Bharti would have acquired 49 per cent shareholding in MTN and in turn MTN and its shareholders would acquire about 36 per cent economic interest in Bharti.

The South African government had demanded dual listing of MTN in order to protect the character of MTN as a South African entity.

While starting the negotiations for the second time in May this year, Sunil Mittal had said "we see real power in the combination and we will work hard to unleash it for all our shareholders."

India Inc feels let down by deal failure Corporate India today felt let down by the failure of the $23-billion proposed merger deal between telecom giants Bharti Airtel and South Africa's MTN but said the south-south co-operation was still alive.

"In this particular proposed deal they (South African government) could have said they will make an exception in their law in terms of dual listing norms," Ficci secretary general Amit Mitra said.

He, however, said there was still scope in South Africa where Indian companies are preferred by "black administration" which today controls the country.

Assocham President Sajjan Jindal described the development as "the most unfortunate". He said the merger between Bharti and MTN would have provided a "golden opportunity" for India Inc to spread its wings in the global business space.

"It is most unfortunate. The MTN deal has been called off despite full support from the Indian government. It was a golden opportunity for India to globalise its wings," he said.

In a consolatory tone, CII director general Chandrajit Banerjee said the MTN deal not going through should not be seen as a dampener.

"India Inc has had many success in the past and in future too we can hope to see some large merger and acquisitions by Indian companies, including the likes of Bharti," he added.

PHDCCI president Satish Bagrodia, however, said: "Indian industry is quite disappointed with the proposed deal being called off. In future Indian companies will be over cautious."

Agencies

500+ BPO jobs to move from Australia to India: Vodafone

Vodafone Hutchison has announced that it will be offshoring 450 call center jobs from Australia to Tasmania and India. A spokesman for Vodafone Hutchison Australia said that company would transfer an unspecified number of positions to a call centre in Mumbai and about 100 jobs to Kingston, Tasmania.

Service Stream, the company that was running Vodafone contract confirmed the telecom operator's plans to end the contract employing 450 in customer service and support roles starting in October to February. Michael Doery, Managing Director of Service Stream says that the company would try to find new roles for the affected employees, but was unlikely to accommodate them. "We're trying to do the right thing for our staff but not give them false expectations. Call centre people are unlikely to suit the other sort of work we do, which is technically-based or based on outdoor civil activities. If a company we're providing services to makes a decision to in-source call centre jobs to Tasmania and India, that's not our decision," Doery said.

The decision to transfer call center jobs out of Australia comes three months after Vodafone Australia and Hutchison 3G Australia formed a 50:50 joint venture. Speaking on the current development Nigel Dews, Australia Chief of Vodafone Hutchison said, "The opportunity to use our combined scale to enhance our customer service capabilities is an important outcome for the Vodafone Hutchison Australia merger."

Agencies

Will MindTree foray into China shortly?

Mid-sized software services firm MindTree will be making foray into China, having bagged a significant outsourcing contract from China’s biggest telecommunications equipment maker Huawei Technologies.

For the Bangalore-headquartered company, China marks new geography entry, besides already having presence in US and Europe. Confirming the development , Parthasarathy N S, CEO, testing & IMTS, MindTree, said, “We will be doing independent testing in the telecom space. This project has different phases and has potential to become large. The contract also allows us to move up the value chain as China has emerged a big growth market”.

However, he declined to name the customer as he is not allowed to do so. The contract deals with R&D and involves managing and supporting independent testing for Huawei’s different product line, where employees of MindTree will do the work at customer location, a person privy to the development said.

“Four companies were bidding for the contract, including an Indian firm and it was given to MindTree after complete evaluation of capabilities ”, the person said on conditions of anonymity. The company, which counts steel-maker Arcelor Mittal, Swedish truckmaker Volvo and insurer AIG among its top customers, will now be opening a subsidiary in China. Mr Parthasarathy said that they have sent techies from its India centres to China and will also look at option of hiring local talent there.

“China is an important market and we are evaluating to set up a development centre, but nothing will be decided till 12-18 months,” said Parthasarathy.

Economic Times

Battle hots up for T-Mobile bidding

MOBILE phone operators Vodafone and O2 are understood to be locked in a £3.5bn bid battle for rival T-Mobile UK.

Both Newbury-based Vodafone and O2 - which is owned by Telefonica Spain - are reported to have bid £3.5bn for the group which has been put up for sale by its German owner Deutsche Telekom.

T-Mobile has 16.6 million customers, so success for either group would make it the biggest mobile operator in the UK.

But there are concerns that T-Mobile UK could be withdrawn from sale altogether, as the offers, which were discussed by Deutsche Telekom's board at the end of last month, are below the expectations of the group's chief executive, Rene Obermann.

A sale at £3.5bn would lead to Deutsche Telekom having to make another writedown on the division after the group took a £1.6bn hit on the business in May, as a result of it losing customers to rivals and declining margins.

The auction is understood to be in its final stages and a decision is expected to be announced in the next few weeks.

If Vodafone was successful in its bid, the deal would boost its share of the UK mobile market to 40 per cent of revenues and a near 50 per cent share by customer numbers with 35 million subscribers enabling it to overtake O2 and regain its crown as the country's biggest mobile operator. O2 would see its market share jump to 43 per cent if it is successful, building on the increase seen following its exclusive deal with Apple to supply iPhone handsets.

Telefonica is said to be concerned that O2 would lose its market-leading position in the UK if Vodafone goes ahead with an offer. But both offers are conditional as any deal is likely to be scrutinised by telecoms regulator Ofcom.

Bankers are understood to have given T-Mobile UK a standalone value of £2.5bn, but this could rise by a further £1bn if it was combined with another operator.

Agencies

Mahindra Satyam BPO on a hiring spree; To hire 300 by Sept

At a time when software firm Mahindra Satyam is rationalising its headcount, its BPO arm seems to be on a hiring spree with plans to recruit 300 employees by the next month.

The company has recently bagged a major contract from a domestic client for providing it back office support.

“To support the client we have already hired 700 employees in the last one month and will hire another 300 by the end of next month," Mahindra Satyam BPO CEO Vijay
Rangineni said.

However, he declined to divulge the name of the new client or the deal size. According to sources, the new win is in the telecom space.

The total headcount of the company after the recruitment would stand at 2,900. Though the parent firm Mahindra Satyam have a considerable presence in the domestic market, this is the first major win by Mahindra Satyam BPO in the domestic space.

Rangineni further said the company would now focus on the sizeable domestic market.

"Post the acquisition by Tech Mahindra, we now have a footprint globally and will leverage the strengths of Tech Mahindra wherever they are present," he said.

Mahindra Satyam BPO has one delivery centre each in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune. The company, however, do not have a global delivery centre so far.

Agencies

C-DOT plans rural projects on its 25th anniversary

The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), the country's premier telecommunications research and development centre, turned 25 Tuesday.

"In all these years, C-DOT has been in the technology forefront and significantly contributed in the indigenisation of telecom technology, digitilisation, bridging the digital divide between urban and rural, establishing strong telecom manufacturing infrastructure and employment generation," said C-DOT executive director P.V. Acharya.

Added Sam Pitroda, National Knowledge Commission Chairman who founded C-DOT, "C-DOT was established as an independent society to help develop a series of digital switching products to meet Indian requirements. At that time, we had about two million phones for 750 million people."

Maintaining that C-DOT "planted the right seeds" for the an information and communication technology (ICT) revolution a quarter century ago, Pitroda told media, "The spirit of private enterprise helped it grow to a substantial industry."

C-DOT has today realigned efforts and defined its roadmap with a focus on developmental schemes for the 11th five Year Plan period.

The company plans to implement projects of national and strategic importance for rural India through the shared GSM Radio Access Network, which is currently under development and expected to give a definite fillip to business in the hinterland.

In the northeastern region, C-DOT aims to breathe fresh life into the fixed line infrastructure.

C-DOT's focus projects include the Gigabit Optical Passive Network that aims at bringing broadband and next generation network products and services to homes.

"Twenty-five years ago, the system was very resistant to new ideas. C-DOT experiment was seen with a great deal of suspicion and there were many multinational lobbying groups constantly trying to kill the initiative," Pitroda said.

"C-DOT was seen by multinational companies as a direct threat to their business interests in India. It survived due to the political will of the prime minister (the late Rajiv Gandhi) and it got accomplished simply due to the energy of the young."

According to Pitroda, the next big challenge is to benefit from the ICT revolution to improve education, health, agriculture, financial services and governance to bring growth and prosperity to the doorsteps of people at the bottom of the pyramid.

Agencies

11.9 m new Indian subscribers added in June

India's telecom industry continued its robust growth story in June by adding 11.91 million new subscribers to take the total subscription base to 464.82 million, said a government statement.

The number of total subscribers in the country as on June 30, 2008 was 325.78 million.

The wireless (GSM and CDMA) segment added 12 million new subscribers, while the wireline segment witnessed a dip of 134,000 connections, the statement said.

The overall tele-density reached 39.86 percent in June 2009 as compared to 28.33 percent in the like period last year.

Broadband connections reached 6.4 million at the end of May and the total number of licences issued for Internet service providers (ISPs) is 375, the statement added.

Under the Bharat Nirman programme, public telephones were provided to 264 villages in May.

Agencies

Solution for European mobile operators to save billions

Bobby Srinivasan founded Roamware, a provider of mobile roaming software and solutions, has unveiled its Voicemail Call Completion (VMCC) product that can help the European operators to save a potential annual bill of $2.1 billion for compliance with new European Union (EU) regulations on roaming voicemail.

The EU regulations, which will be introduced next year, are meant for ensuring that consumers are not being charged additional fees for receiving voice mail messages while roaming.

Though the new regulations will cut costs for consumers, other than any more changes made, Roamware estimates states that European operators will collectively incur an annual cost of between $1.8 billion and $2.1 billion for re-bounding international voicemail calls known in the telecoms industry as "tromboning".

"If you make a call to customer who is roaming but who cannot be reached because the signal is bad or they are already using the phone, two international calls are effectively made - one to try to reach the phone, and a rebound leg back to the home network voice mail box to leave the message. This is what is known as tromboning," explains John Jiang, CTO, Roamware.

Using the Voice Mail Call Completion (VMCC) service in the home network, the software recognizes the unavailable roaming mobile and deposits the call, complete with all the relevant information, straight to the home network mail box.

"We cut out the "trombone call" and ensure that roaming messages get left in exactly the same way as normal, helping operators meet their EU commitment and saving costs for both them and the consumers," said Jiang.

The company provides roaming software and services to more than 90 networks in the EU region. "We are seeing significant traction and interest from our existing customers and other operators both inside and outside the European region as operators realize the implication of the new EU regulations and the opportunities that exist to cut costs and improve service," said Abraham Punnoose, Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, Roamware.

SiliconIndia

Has Intel completed Wind River acquisition?

Intel has completed its purchase of Wind River, which builds software for smartphones and other devices.

The acquisition is costing Intel $11.50 a share in cash for a total price tag of around $884 million, Intel said Friday. Wind River is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel, reporting to the chipmaker's Software and Services Group.

By scooping up Wind River, Intel hopes to carve out a greater chunk of the mobile device market. Wind River designs operating systems and other software for cell phones, portable Internet devices, consumer electronics, and in-car "infotainment" systems. With such diverse customers as Sony, Verizon, Motorola, Boeing, and NASA, Wind River has its hooks in the automotive, aerospace, and telecommunications industries.

"The acquisition will deliver to Intel robust software capabilities in embedded systems and mobile devices, both important growth areas for the company," said Renee James, an Intel vice president and general manager of the company's Software and Services Group.

The purchase of Wind River also moves Intel further into software as an added source of revenue.

Though now owned by Intel, Wind River said it will continue to develop applications for its current customers. The company expects to pick up sales and new customers with access to Intel's technology, brand, and global sales force.

Intel first announced its decision to buy Wind River on June 4.

CNET.com

GP test market expected to reach Rs 6,692.5 million by 2011

The growing trend of the telecom market has paved way for the general purpose (GP) test equipment industry. According to the analysis from the Growth Partnership Company, Frost and Sullivan, the Indian GP test equipment market has earned revenues over Rs 4,346.50 million in 2007 and is expected to reach Rs 6,692.5 million by 2011.

The GP test equipment market is employed for a wide range of products including the research and development (R&D), manufacturing to installation and maintenance (I&M). The cost advantages and availability of skilled professionals have transformed India into a R&D hub for various industries. A vast number of companies from the entire world are investing in the country, which is aiding the market of GP test equipment.

"As security concerns assume the limelight in the wake of the terror threats and security concerns facing the country, an enormous amount has been budgeted for defense spending, which includes communication technologies," says Deepa Doraiswamy, Frost & Sullivan Program Manager. "A decent proportion of the spending goes into procuring test equipment, which mostly includes general purpose (GP) test equipment, and this is expected to create good opportunities in the ensuing years for the GP test equipment market."

Further, the customer support and the brand equity have become the determining factors for the success of the GP test Equipment market. Most of the test vendors have allocated 10 to 15 percent of their revenues to R&D, which result in the emergence of multi-functional instruments that integrate the functions of diverse equipments into one, marking the end of stand-alone products.

Moreover, the expansion of communication networks across the country is facilitating the GP test equipment such as the spectrum analyzers and the network analyzers. With the increasing penetration of mobile phones into the rural zones, the demand for the GP testers is on rise.

However, there are some concerns associated with the GP market, which need to be addressed. "Continuous product improvement with new features demonstrating cutting-edge technology remains the challenging aspiration for GP test vendors to gain market share," says Doraiswamy. "They must fine tune their products and make feature additions and modifications to outpace competition. Participants must also cater to the demand for customized products, identifying the specific end user needs across all end user segments," she adds.

SiliconIndia