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V.Rishi Kumar

Juniper Networks sees India as one of its most promising markets for growth.

Nagendra Venkaswamy

As the Indian mobile telephony market is expanding, adding about 5-6 million new subscribers a month, it has emerged a happy hunting ground for networking solutions providers. Juniper Networks sees India as one of its most promising markets for growth. The Managing Director of Juniper Networks India and SAARC, Nagendra Venkaswamy, in a chat with eWorld, talks of key trends in this space. Excerpts:

On 3G and its potential...

The success of 2G services (30 million to 50 million mobile users in the last fiscal year) has proved that the Indian market is extremely price-sensitive and only when tariffs are really affordable can a technology be said to have achieved mass success. Therefore, while 3G is significantly higher in quality and can improve the way India communicates, its potential or commercial success would only be a result of its adaptability to the Indian masses.

Keeping in mind the cost of rolling out 3G networks, which includes the proposed entry fee for 3G spectrum, the cost of upgrading handsets and the requirement of providing cost-effective 3G services thereafter, 3G, currently, has limited potential in India.

Broadband has still not widely penetrated in India though it is rapidly growing. So consumer triple play services, where telephony, regular Internet access and video are delivered to homes, is still quite far away.

But this does not mean that convergence is not playing out in the central core portions of the network. Convergence includes under its umbrella the biggest trend of all, the proliferation of mobile phones

Convergence applications will mean newer platforms. Will the legacy applications fit into the new platforms?

With convergence in the network becoming a worldwide reality, we are seeing a shift in the architecture of the network. Unlike earlier times, where a separate network was built for disparate applications or services, convergence is about having one single infrastructure for various applications and services. We are talking about reduced Capex (capital expenditure) and reduced Opex (operational expenditure) and lesser time to market, thus increasing the bottom line.

Today we have either built or are in the process of rolling out a number of such networks across the globe and in the Asia-Pacific region.

India has emerged one of the fastest growing telecom markets. How does Juniper plan to tap into this opportunity?

The substantial growth witnessed in the Indian telecom sector is of strategic importance to us. Juniper recently increased its partner network from 25 to 100 in India to facilitate the growth of the Enterprise business.

Typically, we work with large, global systems integrators in the Service Provider (Telecom) space. Our growing channel partner network will ensure that our customers have the benefit of vertical industry expertise combined with infrastructure, security solutions and infrastructure optimisation and management solutions.

Government, utility, banking and finance, automotive parts manufacturing, energy and many other industries form our clientele.

Your plans for IP-based technologies and broadband networks...

VoIP, IPTV and 3G are all poised for growth. The Juniper Networks Service Deployment System is a robust, customisable application. The IP services include video on demand (VOD), IP television, and integrated voice and data. Services are offered over a variety of broadband access technologies — Wi-Fi 802.11 wireless hotspots, DSL (digital subscriber loop), cable, Ethernet, Frame Relay, SONET and fixed wireless.

The bottlenecks...

Bottlenecks relate to infrastructure, manpower, employee turnover. The current infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired, we are still far away from what it should be. All this has a direct impact on foreign direct investment (FDI).

How big is the market you and competitors are addressing globally and in India?

Networking is the backbone of any IT infrastructure and a year of healthy growth in IT consumption implies a bumper for the networking vendors and fiscal 2005-06 was no exception. Though the growth rate came down by a few points as compared to last year, the overall networking adoption pattern showed little signs of slowing down, either for large enterprises or for the SMBs.

In fact, even the drop of these few points (from 34 per cent growth in fiscal 2004-05 to 26 per cent in fiscal 2005-06) could be attributed to the significant bases achieved by almost all categories of networking products, especially routers and switches. Both these categories grew by 22 per cent. Though much lower than previous year figures, their overall market sizes have crossed the Rs 1,000-crore threshold.

Juniper showed significant growth with a 24 per cent market share in the routing space and has emerged as a leader in the broadband service routing segment with 35.1 per cent market share.

vrishi@thehindu.co.in

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