The Hindu Business Line : corDECT tech finds market in 10 nations

THE technology, which is neither CDMA nor GSM, well known wireless technology platforms, but India's home grown corDECT technology from the Chennai-based Midas Communication Technologies, has now found markets in 10 countries.

Midas now exports corDECT telephone exchanges to South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Madagascar, Fiji, The Philippines, and Indonesia.

Midas has now come up with yet another solution called optima, that is a fibre in local loop solutions, offering ISDN and broadband services.

It allows the service providers to enhance their coverage of enterprise customers.

The company's small telephone exchanges, said the CEO, Mr Shirish Purohit, were ideal for deployment in thinly populated areas where it is not viable to lay a wireline or fibre, or to even set up a full-fledged mobile network. This has found its customers in basic services operators domestically.

Midas has supplied 6 lakh lines to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, 35,000 lines to Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, 1,000 exchanges to Reliance Infocomm and 84 exchanges to Tata Teleservices, says Mr Purohit.

"The DECT technology is an existing platform, but we have created the access technology based on that; it is a kind of wireless in local loop technology," he said.

When these customers extend their services to rural areas, they find the corDECT technology most viable.

Commonly, basic operators deploy corDECT for towns with one lakh to 1.5 lakh population or in villages where there is an elite or a group of people who want telecom access, but who are small in numbers.

Midas' revenues, which amounted to Rs. 48 crore during 2002-2003, are expected to touch Rs 250 crore in the current financial year.

Ten to 15 of Midas' employees are always on the move globally, developing business for the company.

Mr Purohit says corDECT's unique features - compared to CDMA and GSM, is that it allows simultaneous use of voice and data; and it gives data at a reasonable but steady speed.

"Other technologies may offer more speed, but not on a sustainable basis."

It can thus serve small educational projects, health projects, e-governance and NGO projects or office in small towns and villages.

corDECt has been developed by Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala and a few others at IIT-Chennai. Midas and the TeNET group (a loosely connected group of people at IIT Chennai with like minds).

Midas has obtained funds by offering its technology licence to manufacturers such as TCIL, HFCL and Shyam Telecom who actually put together the exchange and equipment.

Further Midas gets a royalty on sales.

Every bit of the software and hardware of corDECT and Optima is put together in India, says Mr Purohit.

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