Study Reveals 20% of Sites Are Congested At Any Point In Time

Mahindra Comviva, the global leader in providing mobility solutions and Ovum Consulting, released a research study on strategies for realizing the optimal potential of media optimization.

With the growth in mobile data, the complexity of managing traffic has also intensified driven by greater use of bandwidth hungry applications and heightened customer expectations for an ever-higher Quality of Experience (QoE). According to Ovum Research’s recent forecasts, global mobile broadband connections will cross 4.5 billion at a CAGR of 19% from 2012 to 2018 as demand for data connectivity from big- and small-screen devices continues. It also predicts that mobile broadband revenues will grow to approximately $278 billion in 2018 at a CAGR of 11%.

In the face of unrelenting data growth, the study highlights the benefits operators would reap by deploying intelligent media optimization to deliver an assured service experience and better monetize data traffic.

Current optimization techniques are applied principally as a blunt instrument for Capex containment. The broad application of optimization policies such as compression has negative fallout on revenue, especially for operators who predominantly extend volume based plans to customers. As an example, video optimization in a high-traffic location improves bandwidth utilization and overall browsing experience. However, the application of the same policy at congestion-free locations generates lower traffic volume, reducing the number of bytes and revenues per customers. 

Commenting on the significance of media optimization, Madan G. Onkar, Vice President, Internet and Broadband Solutions said “Data is the new growth category for operators in emerging markets. The ability to delight customers with a personalized, consistent, experience and innovative offers is a critical services differentiator. Intelligent context-aware application of optimization techniques would enable operators to balance twin pressures of network and revenue growth.” 

Data traffic is distributed unevenly on the network.  An approximate 20% cell sites are congested at any point of time. The study posits a more intelligent approach to optimization is possible, one that can improve customer experience and service personalization based on real-time invocation of business rules and policies. Unlike conventional techniques, intelligent media optimization selectively applies performance-improvement techniques, based on a combination of variables including – cell traffic load, customer location, network type, application, device and ARPU profile.  

Currently 20% operators have invested in intelligent optimization tools. The report indicates 60% operators would deploy intelligent media optimization within the next 12 months, driven by the need to deliver a consistent QoE (Quality of Experience) and grow revenues. Intelligent optimization would generate new monetization opportunities for operators by enabling them to offer innovative, real-time QoE-based plans to customers. High ARPU user segments, for instance, would be willing to pay more for an assured experience for content; a live sports stream, for example. Likewise, based on congestion levels, MNOs can compress video content for price-sensitive users, who are unwilling to pay more and value speed of transmission over video quality.

Mhasis Awarded ‘Green Co’ Certification By CII

Mphasis, a leading IT services provider, has been awarded the ‘Green Co’ Bronze certification by CII in accordance with the Green Co Rating System. This award recognizes the significant contribution of Mphasis in the area of environmental performance. Mphasis is the first IT/ITES Company in India to be certified under Green Co CII - Godrej GBC. The award was given away by Former Union Minister for Power, Chairperson Council of Energy, Environment and Water, India - Suresh Prabhu at the Green Co Summit 2014 that was held in Chennai.

“Greenco” rating under the Green Company Rating system, is initiated by CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) and is first of its kind in the world. The Green Rating System acts as a milestone for companies pursuing green to assess where they stand and help in defining the path forward. As of now twenty six manufacturing companies in India are Green Co rated.

The Mphasis Mangalore Facility was taken as a sample and was audited over six times in the past eighteen months by CII as part of the Green Co certification process. The company was measured on nine parameters and environmental practice. The Green Co- Drivers for Excellence are - Energy Efficiency, Water Positive Status, GHG Mitigation, Waste Management, Material conservation, Recycling & Recyclability, Green Supply Chain, Renewable Energy, and Toxicity Reduction & Stewardship.

Over the years, Facility Management has been growing and anchoring its position within an organizations' critical business processes. Mphasis, through its comprehensive EHS policy, has been constantly striving to minimize its carbon footprint and increase the health and safety standards of its employees at the workplace. The award is a testimony of Mphasis’ focus towards sustainability, employee wellbeing, safety and resource conservation initiatives undertaken within the organization.

2.5 Lakh Panchayats To Be Connected Through Broadband

India will build a broadband highway connecting 2.5 lakh panchayats across the country in the next three years to provide a host of public services, union Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Tuesday. 

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a target of providing broadband connectivity to 2.5 lakh local bodies (spread over six lakh villages) across the country over the next three years, with 50,000 this (fiscal) year and one lakh each over the next two years," Prasad said at a meeting here with IT industry honchos. 

Asserting that the Modi government would be known for building a broadband highway much as the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government was known for building highways connecting metros and cities across India, Prasad said the prime minister wanted to change India through the instrument of information technology. 

"The prime minister shared his vision of using ICT (information and communication technology) at a meeting with my ministry recently where presentations were made to him. 

"He wants WiFi (wireless fidelity) in cities and towns and broadband connectivity in every school across the country," Prasad said. 

Lamenting that broadband connectivity in India was less than even in Sri Lanka and Malaysia, Prasad appealed to the IT industry to help the government in achieving the target of providing broadband connectivity to the local bodies. 

"You got a good name in the global IT industry with your software and services. You should now make India a proud destination for IT products by developing innovative technologies and products that can be used for e-education, e-healthcare and e-governance," Prasad told executive council members of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom). 

Terming his first interaction with the IT honchos, including Wipro chairman Azim H. Premji as an "IT panchayat", Prasad advised them to develop products that can use broadband to provide education and health care on a fast track. 

"You should create a dedicated portal for lost and found children that can be used nationwide by the agencies to trace them when their details are uploaded as hundreds of them (children) go missing, are kidnapped or separated from their families," he told the council members. 

Admitting that there was scope for improvement in e-governance, the minister said he had written to the Law Commission to shorten electronic forms for approvals/clearances. 

"I have also written to various chambers of commerce and industry and concerned agencies for suggestions to ease doing business in the country by simplifying the procedures and reducing the number of clearances for quick decision-making," he added. 

Nasscom president R. Chandrashekhar said the cost of providing broadband connectivity to 2.5 lakh local bodies was estimated to be a whopping Rs.20,000 crore and the potential for business by using the facility would be two-fold, with a multiplier effect on the economy at large. 

Source: Agencies

Minister Holds IT Panchayats With Industry Associations

In an attempt to strengthen and leverage IT and innovation for economic growth & development of the start-up ecosystem, National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has put forth its recommendation to the Union government in a meeting of NASSCOM’s Executive Council with Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Law and Justice.

NASSCOM, along with other industry leaders, came together to share critical areas that need immediate attention and intervention from the Government. Industry leaders stressed on the need to enable innovation and support entrepreneurship in order to foster an ecosystem and accelerate growth of product, and start-up companies. In order to promote growth and global competitiveness of IT industry, NASSCOM has also requested to the Government’s help to build newer markets while expanding core markets, focusing on skill development, and employment creation. NASSCOM has also requested the government to provide relevant interventions to improve business environment in India to ease investment and operations for entrepreneurs in the country.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister, Communications & Information & Technology and Law & Justice, said, “This is my first formal interaction after taking up the position of minister of communications & IT, and I want to reiterate the need to transform India into a software product nation. The future of the Indian IT industry will be driven by products and there is a need to encourage investments in this segment. We will be holding many more such meetings in the future which will be more like ‘IT panchayats’ that will involve detailed discussions and a feedback mechanism from key stakeholders on how to leverage IT and Innovation for the start-up ecosystem and betterment of the industry.”

On the side-lines, R Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM stated that “Of the total revenue, about 80% is contributed by 200 larger and mid-sized players and, rest 20% comes from more than 16,000 companies that are either small and emerging. With constant innovations both at global and domestic level, the smaller companies can become bigger and large companies can penetrate the market deeper, but only with right and immediate support by the government in terms.” He further added that “Our future growth will be driven by innovation, IP and valuations, and hence NASSCOM has recommended five pronged agenda to achieve this.” 

Launch India Technology Entrepreneur Mission (ITEM)

Betting big on India’s young and emerging businesses and estimated impact of 50,000 technology start-ups adding 2% to India’s GDP and 3 million jobs by 2020, NASSCOM recommends to launch Rs. 500 Crore ITEM to Foster an ecosystem and initiatives that accelerate growth of product, small and start-up companies. The primary focus areas for this project will be:

•     Propose and action simplified regulation

•     Enabling funding, incubators, accelerators

•     Accelerate skill development, academia link

•     Taxation

•     Catalyze innovation – incentives & support for IP creation, ideas contest

Promote growth and global competitiveness of IT industry

At a domestic level, NASSCOM’s proposal to the government focus on helping deliver as frictionless and level a playing field as is possible for the technology and product innovators. NASSCOM suggests building new markets and expanding core markets with special focus on skill development and employment creation.

At a global level, NASSCOM suggests to establish launch pad facilities for early stage India domiciled technology ventures who wish to crack into international markets. Setup the first batch of technology venture launchpads in US (San Francisco, Silicon Valley, NYC), Europe/UK (London), Singapore, Japan. These facilities will provide access to low cost office space for upto a year, connect companies to local talent/investors/customers/press/service providers, assist with visas, recommend pre-packaged cost-efficient legal /accounting services, and actively look to showcase the companies to the local ecosystem. Create strong incentives for local managers of launchpads with outcomes delivered to tenant ventures.

There is also urgent need to build awareness around the innovative work done by the Indian product companies and showcase India’s outstanding products, facilitate international companies engaging with the Indian ecosystem, champion software product evangelists, and improve perception of India’s IP Laws among international customers and buyers of software assets. 

Improve business environment in India for investment and operations

Taxation:

1)    R&D Tax Credits: for expenses related to generation of innovative software IP and filing of related patents.

2)    GST: uniformity in taxation is desirable - especially due to definitional issues. Efficient and harmonized consumption tax system. Goods vs. Services should get resolved. If the gap between Services and Goods tax rates is kept relatively minor or equal then most of these problems go away.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR):

3)    Patent Accelerator Program: filing assistance and partially subsidize filing costs of patent filed in overseas jurisdictions.

4)    Enhance Domestic Patent Laws: to allow India software related claims to be patentable and match global standards.

Maximally leverage ICT and innovation to improve Governance and achieve National development goals: Create Impact and develop domestic market

There is an imperative need to revamp cumbersome and restrictive procurement processes, hence it is recommended to co-opt industry as a partner and enable market access for entrepreneurs and SMEs. The government must also encourage IT adoption in Government and private sector while revisiting provisions of investment allowance and identify suitable allocations for IT adoption to enable access and efficiency.

Futuristic policies that catalyze emergence of the Digital Economy

Keeping digital identity in the center of every process, the government must focus to bring digitization and scale National Digital Literacy Mission. NASSCOM has requested the government to expedite roll out of broadband (OF & 4G), adopt and integrated approach to Electronics, design, IT products & Services, support growth of ecommerce and participate in global discussions on cross border data flows and associated issues to develop and communicate India position.

Panasonic Brings LFB70 Series For Indian Market

As a part of Panasonic India’s ongoing efforts to focus on product differentiation coupled with developing innovative technological solutions, the company today introduced its LFB70 series of multi-touch interactive LED displays which come in 80”, 65”, and 50” models and will be available from July 1, 2014 in the market.

The three models TH-80LFB70, TH-65LFB70, TH-50LFB70 are priced at 11 lacs, 4 lacs and 2.5 lacs respectively. Specially designed for the corporate and education sector, the new interactive displays aim to provide a major boon to professional system/audio video Integrators for professional applications like video conferencing, board room and interactive solutions.

The LFB70 Series of professional Full HD displays incorporate intuitive touch screen technology, fully interactive whiteboard functionality (up to six touch points), offering superb image quality and wireless connectivity. The Built-in whiteboard software in these models allows one to turn on the display and start work at once without the need of connecting to a PC. Other than this, notes can be made on almost anything, from video and photos to PowerPoint and PDF documents, and then saved as an image file which is simply brilliant from a usage point of view. 

With vibrant Full HD resolution and a wide display area, videoconferencing participants in remote locations can write detailed notes onto shared documents and solve problems in real time, just as they would when working together in the office. These solutions produce up to 100 pages of work on the whiteboard and save them to the built-in memory*1 or USB thumb drive as JPEG image files. 

The operation of the LFB70 series models can be performed either by the touch of fingers or a stylus pen, through the six touch points that incorporates detection. The series is designed with the next-generation wireless technology, Miracast allowing seamless high speed wireless transmission of content, including Full HD video files, from Miracast compatible devices to the displays.

Vineet Mahajan, Head, Display Solutions, Panasonic India said, “The launch of these series by Panasonic is yet another step towards enhancing our portfolio offering next-gen interactive training features in the professional display category. These series come with features providing an opportunity for professionals to consider the future of digital teaching equipment for classroom or boardroom purposes.”

Panasonic India will continue to launch such offerings for its customers and the roadmap is to develop products which provide the right visual solutions meeting the customer needs.

Microsoft & Rotary Bring Tech Skills To 150 Schools In NCR

Microsoft India and Rotary International District 3010 today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide the Microsoft IT Academy Program in 150 Delhi NCR schools covering over 150,000 students and 7,500 educators. Microsoft IT Academy is a subscription-based program designed for accredited academic institutions worldwide. It empowers educators to help students hone their skills and recognize their career potential through relevant and high quality technology training resources.

The program’s resources include online learning content, official Microsoft course materials, curricula, learning management system and instructor tools. Further, each school gets access to student and faculty certifications to train educators to use world-class curriculum in their classrooms.  The curricula spans computer basics to high-level programming including Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio and other cutting-edge application development tools.

“Providing Indian youth with 21^st century skills and knowledge is critical in helping them succeed in an increasingly connected world. Our MoU with Rotary International District 3010 is a step in providing these skills to 150,000 school students in Delhi through the Microsoft IT Academy Program,” said Karan Bajwa, Managing Director, Microsoft India. “As per industry estimates, 50% of today’s jobs require some degree of technology skills and this will increase to 77% in the next decade.  At Microsoft, we are committed to partnering with governments, academic institutions and not-for-profit organizations to enable Indian youth through our education focused programs.”

Microsoft IT Academy bridges the skills gap by providing the curriculum, the training foundation and the validation of skills that college and career-bound students need to be successful.  Today, Microsoft IT Academies around the world are helping prepare students, create successful schools and strengthen communities.   

“By collaborating with Microsoft, we are able to provide a roadmap to technology proficiency and industry-recognized Microsoft certification credentials that are  not only well aligned to Rotary’s goal of 100% literacy  by 2017 but go a step further to provide  Digital Literacy skills. We hope to spread this initiative to the rest of the country, as well as globally, over a period of time,” said Rtn Sanjay Khanna, District Governor, Rotary International District 3010.

Rotary International District 3010 has undertaken to sponsor over 150 Schools in this joint initiative with Microsoft. This is Rotary International District 3010’s contribution to the students in Delhi NCR and help them attain skills to succeed in the 21^st Century global economy.

New Digital Online & Self-Service Banking Solutions From SBI

State Bank of India (SBI), the nation's largest bank, has launched six digital branches across the country, as part of a pioneering program to offer next generation banking solutions to India's growing mobile phone and internet-savvy customer base. The bank engaged Accenture to develop the digital business strategy for its branch program, which features a range of advanced digital banking capabilities, including instant account opening with personalized debit cards, instant loan approvals for car and home loans and remote expert advisors available via video links. Accenture helped SBI in designing the branch layouts, implementing the digital processes and technology at the branches, and providing back-end integration, including employee training.

SBI aims to transform the customer experience by delivering world-class service through all of its customer channels. Its new branches, branded as sbiINTOUCH, are equipped with interactive wall and table displays; remote experts that can be reached instantly via high-definition videoconferencing; and multi-function kiosks that provide services such as instant account opening with personalized debit cards, and instant in-principle approvals for home, auto or education loans. The branches are located in major metropolitan areas across India, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Ahmedabad.

“India is in the midst of a major demographic transition and we recognize that our customers increasingly expect digital services to help them manage their financial needs,” said Arundhati Bhattacharya, the chairman of State Bank of India. “Today, more than half of India's population is under the age of 25. By 2020, India's average age will be just 29 years - this is a digital demographic: one that expects businesses to provide solutions immediately. At the same time, the mass-affluent - no matter what their age - have similar expectations. Indian banks need to provide a strong response to these new demands. These branches are a first step in the journey to offering full digital services across the nation.”

“InTouch is the start of SBI’s Digital journey,” said S K Mishra, deputy managing director, State Bank of India. “This is our attempt to put our brand in touch with the dreams of the aspirational customer. It’s a deep rooted transformation that has three aspects: a transformation of the customer experience we deliver; introduction of device centric technology that is at the forefront of our global peers; and transformation of the behavioral model of our staff-base to be even more customer centric.”

“India has an opportunity to become a world leader in digital banking services, and we are pleased to collaborate with the leadership team of the State Bank of India,” said Piyush Singh, managing director and head of Accenture's Financial Services operating group in India. “By putting technology at the heart of their business strategy, India's largest bank will be at the forefront of the global digital revolution that is transforming banking.”

The transformative initiative leverages Accenture's deep banking-industry knowledge and expertise in strategy and systems-integration, and capabilities in digital marketing, mobility and analytics from Accenture Digital.