Instrumental in bagging almost all the CDMA deals on the private front, Vijay K Gupta, director, business development (Asia), Lucent Technologies Asia Pacific, has made Lucent the leading telecom vendor in a short duration of two years. In his current role, Gupta is expected to expand Lucent’s business in Asia and India. Prior to this, he was president and CEO of Lucent Technologies (India).

His impressive performance has helped the company bag the largest telecom deal in the country—that of Reliance Infocomm for around 3 million CDMA lines. Prior to joining Lucent, he was president and member of board of Reliance Telecom, which helped Lucent in bagging the largest telecom deal in the country. He also worked for a period of about 10 years with Lucent Technologies through its JVs with Tata Industries—Tata Lucent Technologies, and Tata Telecom, and has around 30 years of experience in the field of electronics and telecommunications.

Vijay K Gupta spoke to VOICE&DATA about the CDMA market, technology, and the applications, in the Indian context. Excerpts:

What do you feel about the CDMA market in India and how much growth are you expecting from this market?
I am very optimistic about the Indian market, as it is very strong and growing. The Indian market provides a lot of value for the operators as well as customers. This creates a positive impact on the growth of the market and we are constantly seeing that happening in the country.

The wireless market in the country has been growing at the rate of 80 percent and I see no reason why wireless market will not continue to grow. This fast growth will also benefit CDMA, as people do not care about technology and are more bothered about good quality of service. In terms of capacity, Tata and Reliance commission most of the CDMA infrastructure. Also, there is enhancement of some of our CDMA networks deployed in Shyam Telelink, Tata Teleservices (AP), and HFCL Infotel. Since the last six months, CDMA is emerging as a significant service, as it provides good quality of coverage and capacity.

How do you compare the two wireless technologies—CDMA and GSM, and which one is better?
GSM lobby talks about GSM being cheaper whereas CDMA lobby talks about CDMA being cheaper. In the semi-urban areas, CDMA works out to be cheaper than GSM for similar quality (capacity and coverage), whereas in the urban areas that difference reduces. CDMA users also have an advantage of high data rates of up to 144 kbps, without hogging extra spectrum.

CDMA is still evolving whereas GSM is a close-end technology. On the GSM front, if one has to move to 2.5G (GPRS), one has to add GPRS backbone. If one moves to 3G technology in GSM, one has to opt for a new system and a completely new spectrum. On the other hand, CDMA service providers can opt for IS-95 A/IS-95 B, with speeds ranging from 14.4 kbps to 64 kbps, 3G 1X for speeds of up to 144 kbps, and 3G 1X EV-DO for speeds of up to 3 Mbps. Thus, in the long run, it works out to be cheaper for the consumer.

What are the factors for the growth of CDMA in the country?
The growth of CDMA in the country will depend on a number of factors. These are the price at which this service will be available, regulation, availability of the handsets and new services (like SMS for teenagers), and how quickly these services evolve and gain acceptability in the country.

What are the killer applications that will make an impact in the Indian scenario?
The enterprise market will be an amazing market, as currently, people cannot communicate easily and efficiently while on the move. At present, it is as cumbersome process as one connects to the ISP and then to the corporate VPN, using a PCMCIA card. On the CDMA front, using a PCMCIA card with an antenna on it, one can receive faxes, voicemail, and e-mail on the PC. Currently, the 3G 1X PCMCIA card costs $150 and the price will keep on falling with the increase in demand for these gadgets. People on the move can now communicate through their laptops and CDMA phones and that is going to be the biggest market, as one is connected to his or her enterprise, irrespective of geographies and distance. Even for consumers to stay in touch, CDMA opens up many new areas. By using a camera phone, one can not only communicate what he/she is doing at that point of time but can also send pictures. One can do multimedia messaging irrespective of distance. Using additional infrastructure, one can use location-based service and browse the Internet.

The merging of wireless with high-capacity digital storage media has given birth to new gadgets like memory stik and smart media. The trend is that digital devices (called memory devices) can store images that can be sent back and forth along with voice communication.

What is the actual bandwidth that a consumer gets by using CDMA 2000 1x, considering the fact that GPRS promises a bandwidth of 50 kbps but what one gets is less is in the range of 15-20 kbps?
GPRS is troubled by technology limitations. This is not the case with CDMA 2000 1x. Since it uses the IP pipe, one gets all the advantages of IP as it is packetized and the same data speed can be expected. However, it has all the problems related to IP.

In India, there has been a long-drawn debate on the deployment of air interface like V5.2 technology or A plus technology. What is your viewpoint on this aspect?
The operator should be allowed to choose the technology and allowed to offer all services to its consumers. All interfaces have their own advantages and disadvantages. The technology should offer services and good return on investment. And if any technology can do it, there should not be any restrictions. Service providers have deployed A plus or V5.2 interfaces depending on the services being offered. The cost of deployment of these two interfaces will depend on the service that is being offered to the consumers.

Service providers have been talking about deployment of fixed wireless terminal along with WLL (M) phones in the country. What would be the ratio of fixed wireless to WLL (M) phones in the country?
Fixed wireless is dead but it is okay for certain applications like PCO operations and any other application that is compulsory due to regulation. In the 90s, fixed wireless terminals were more in demand, as copper and mobile handsets were bulky to carry. But now when lighter phones with reduced prices (from $400 to $40) are available, one would like to go for such phones, as these phones are easy to use.

Lucent has done pretty well on the CDMA front in India. Any investment plans for the Indian market?
We have been fairly successful and continue to do well in the Indian market. We are optimistic about the Indian market and have been investing a lot in India.

Pravin Prashant