Tata communications may offer telecom infrastructure to RIL (India)
Tata Communications, a leading telecommunications provider in India, may provide Mukesh Ambani’s energy company, Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), with telecommunications infrastructure as the company is reportedly planning to launch wireless broadband services. According to reports, Srinivasa Addepalli, senior vice president (corporate strategy and communications), Tata Group firm, said that the operator had made its presentations to Reliance.
As per sources, RIL bought 95 per cent of Infotel Broadband Services Ltd., for which it reportedly paid US$ 960 million, so as to offer wireless broadband services across the country. Further, reports reveal that Reliance aims to offer 4G wireless broadband services across India in 2012, along with its new range of affordable tablet computers.
Industry analysts have reportedly said that a business deal with reliance would be beneficial to Tata communications as it would increase their revenue thereby reducing their loss, which has gone down from US$ 40 million in 2010 to $32.5 million in the second quarter of 2011.
Tata Communications selects Tranzeo for BWA (India)
Tranzeo Wireless Technologies, Inc. has been selected by Tata Communications to supply Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) equipment for network services to enterprise customers.
Tata will be deploying Tranzeo’s WiMAX and WiFi solutions in over 200 cities in India. Tranzeo will begin to ship immediately.
According to James Tocher, President and CEO of Tranzeo, they are excited and fortunate to be working with Tata to deploy broadband services across India. They have been successful in developing a broad family of products that meet the stringent requirements of Tier 1 service providers. Tata is the second Tier 1 service provider in India to select their equipment.
Tata Communications extends cloud to Singapore
Tata Communications has announced an extension of its InstaCompute cloud service to Singapore and its surrounding countries in order to move further from its historical wholesale carrier services role.
The firm is seeking a larger slice of the crowded managed services market and positioning itself in competition with various telecoms operators, by reaching out directly to businesses.
Instacompute, which is being marketed as an infrastructure-as-a-service offering, was first launched in India last year in October. The expansion of the service to Singapore aims to cater to businesses in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Tata Communications’ cloud services for the region will be hosted out of the company’s data center in Singapore, and delivered over the firm’s IP backbone and MPLS networks. The data center runs Dell storage and compute infrastructure.
The firm aims to extend InstaCompute to Europe, the United States and South Africa by the end of the year.
According to Vinod Kumar, Managing Director and CEO of Tata Communications, the company was hoping to entice customers with what he terms a ‘hybrid’ offering a combination of cloud, hosting and co-location services.
Vodafone to enter landline business in India
Vodafone Essar is planning to enter the leased landline and business solutions space, competing with larger peers Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Tata Communications.
According to Naveen Chopra, Director Enterprise and Carrier Business, they are a late entrant in the business, but that puts them in an advantageous position of nothing to lose. Vodafone’s entry may intensify price wars in the enterprise business, just like new entrants in the mobile telephony space did since late 2008.
With retail customer tariffs coming down to one paisa per second, enterprise business present high margin data revenue for telecom operators. Unlike mobile telephone call rates that have halved over the last two years, telephony solutions for enterprises have been falling 10-15 % every year.
According to Chopra, they cannot pretend that there will be no pricing impact, but the volume growth in the enterprise business more than adequately compensates the fall. Over a span of five years,Vodafone Essar expects trebling of revenue from the segment, which currently accounts for 8-10 % of the company’s revenue at the moment.
According to the company, by the financial year that will end in March of 2016, enterprise business would account for nearly 20% of the company’s revenue. In the October-December quarter, revenue of Vodafone Essar was approximately 7,126 crore. It does not disclose the profitability of the region. It will also give preference to enterprise customers on its 3G services to be launched before March-end.
The company bought 3G airwaves in nine service areas for 11,618 crore in a government auction last year. The service is expected to bring more profit-making data business to telecom operators.
Neotel appoints Sunil Joshi as MD & CEO (South Africa, India)
South African telecom operator Neotel has appointed Sunil Joshi as Managing Director and CEO of the company in which Indian conglomerate Tata group owns majority stake. The appointment is with effect from April 1, 2011.
Sunil Joshi has replaced Ajay Pandey, who will move back to Tata Communications after completing five years with Neotel.
According to Neotel Non-Executive Chairman N Srinath, Sunil is strongly positioned to take Neotel forward along with the changing needs of the market, as enterprise customers shift their focus more towards managed services, in line with global trends.
There were speculations in the past few weeks that Neotel, 56% owned by Tatas, was in serious financial trouble, even informing its staff that retrenchment were possible this year.
Joshi has more than 22 years of experience in the Indian domestic and global IT and telecom industry. He has led Tata Communications’ strategy for emerging markets as well as providing international customers’ access into new markets.
BCG adds Bharti, Lupin in 100 global challengers list
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has added telecom major Bharti Airtel and drug-maker Lupin into its list of 100 companies from the emerging markets which can challenge existing Fortune 500 firms over the next five years.
In a report titled ‘ BCG Global Challengers 2011, released globally, it states that these 100 firms, mostly from China, India, Brazil, Mexico and Russia, and for the first time four companies from South Africa and Egypt, are the hidden engines of the global economy and can qualify for inclusion in the Fortune Global 500 in five years as they grow faster and more profitably than MNCs from developed world.
This year, overall, there are 23 new challengers, including Bharti and Lupin, in the list from 16 countries. The BCG Global Challenger series was launched in 2006 to identify companies shaking up the global economy.
According to reports, the 100 challenger companies grew annually by 18 % during 2000-09. If they continue on their current growth path, they could collectively generate US$8 trillion in revenues by 2020, an amount roughly equivalent to what the S&P 500 companies generate today. These challengers’ revenue stood at US$ 1.3 trillion in 2009.
According to BCG India Partner & Director and a co-author of the report Sharad Verma, as competition intensifies, the boundaries between these two distinct sets of companies will continue to blur. Many challengers are creating disruptive business models and coming up with new and better ways to get the job done in many industries. Bharti Airtel exemplifies this approach with its innovations in outsourcing and distribution.
Of the 20 Indian firms in the list, six are from the Tata Group – TCS , Tata Steel , Tata Motors , Tata Global Beverages , Tata Communications and Tata Chemicals . Others are RIL , Infosys , L&T , M&M , Bajaj Auto , Wipro , Hindalco , Crompton Greaves , Dr Reddy’s , Bharat Forge , Suzlon and Vedanta .
Videotron inks sourcing agreement with Tata Communications? (India, Canada)
Tata Communications has entered into an outsourcing agreement with Canada-based Videotron under which Videotron will route the entire international voice traffic though the Tata group firm’s network.
According to Tata Communication, Videotron would continue to be one of the Tata Communication’s’ key suppliers of telecommunication service in Canada. Through it, Tata Communications will become Videotron’s sole provider of internal voice termination. By tapping into Communications’ extensive and robust voice infrastructure, Videotron will be able to offer its customers higher quality international calls at competitive rates.
Tata Communications’ advanced voice traffic management tools will allow Videotron to effectively manage operational costs and increase focus on its core businesses and key growth areas.
According to Videotron Business Solutions President Jean Novak, they are confident this partnership will provide enhanced international call service quality to our subscribers, boosting our standing in the market place and cementing our position as one of Canada’s leading telecommunications providers.
Tata Communications strategic voice traffic outsourcing enables providers to leverage Tata Communications scale and routing expertise while reducing their exposure in the low margin, high risk international voice termination business.
According to Tata Communications President of Global Voice Solutions Michel Guyot, the solution that they offer allow their customers to become more competitive in their regions by reducing costs, streamlining operations and improving service quality, while allowing them to focus limited resources on core services and key growth segments.
Tata Communications’ flexible partnership approach includes route outsourcing and infrastructure sharing.
Videotron will be able to grow their voice revenues while reducing capital commitments to traffic management platforms, back-office capabilities and next-generation IP networks.
Tata Teleservices appoints N Srinath as new CEO (India)
India-based Tata Teleservices has named N Srinath as its new Managing Director and CEO. Srinath succeeds Prasad R Menon who will retire January 31.
Tata Teleservices retails mobile services in India under three brand names: Tata Indicom, Tata DoCoMo and Virgin Mobile.
Srinath was previously working as the CEO of submarine cable network owners Tata Communications, which has since named Vinod Kumar its new CEO starting February 1.
The appointments form part of parent company Tata Group’s reshuffle of top management among its group members.
Tata Communications to acquire US-based BitGravity (India)
Tata Communications has packed a deal to acquire BitGravity, which provides network for content delivery over the Internet, for an undisclosed amount.
As per Tata Communications filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange, upon completion of the transaction, Tata Communications (Netherlands) will own 100% BitGravity, which will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the former. Terms of the transaction or the deal size were not disclosed.
In 2008, Tata Communications had entered into a strategic partnership with BitGravity for licensing content delivery network (CDN) technology and federation of networks of both entities. Tata Communications also made an investment of US$ 11.5 million in the company.
The agreement allowed Tata Communications to enter the market with its own global CDN in 2008 and has resulted in successful traction with media, content and gaming companies like NDTV, IAH Games, Quick Heal Technologies and Nimbus Communications across Europe, Asia and India.
According to Tata Communications Senior VP (Global Network Services) Genius Wong, with the success they have seen in the marketplace and their ownership of BitGravity, they can now fully invest in the potential that exists around the globe and accelerate the delivery of new features and services to our customers.
US-based BitGravity is a privately held company, which was founded in 2006, and launched its services in 2008. BitGravity initially raised a total of US$ 13.5 million in two rounds of funding from angel investors and Tata Communications.
