n The Big Three: Avaya, Tyco, and D-Link were the major shareholders in the Indian structured cabling market. Avaya and Tyco, which account for close to 60 percent of the market share, are continuing to dominate the market. Avaya had about 40 percent market share, while Tyco has about 21 percent. D-Link’s market share stood at close to 17 percent.

Systems integrators today see Tyco as number one in south, east, and central India, while Avaya is considered strong in north and west. Meanwhile D-Link, Krone, Molex, Panduit, and Finolex too are consolidating their bases. This year, some more international brands like Belden and Nexans could be making their presence felt.

n Copper Rules the Roost: On the technology front, the adoption of latest technology is gaining momentum. The market is moving from Category 5E to Category 6. Copper is winning the horizontal battle, primarily because of the cost of components for 100BaseT and backward compatibility to easily support legacy systems. Though fiber costs will continue to decrease due to economies of scale, the belief is that there will still be a substantial price premium on fiber components such as NICs and switches, and potentially much more infrastructure to replace with a move to fiber. Category 6 standards copper cables promises enhanced performance of 250 MHz and copper to desktops, which is still cheaper.

n Fiber Picking Up: The penetration of fiber in the backbone has been about 30 percent, and rising. The attractive proposition for fiber has come from campus networks. But fiber to the desktops will take several more years. In India, it has been the 62.5 micron multimode fiber that has been growing. However, of late, 50 micron multimode is gaining ground. Single-mode is still sparsely deployed. It is not because the cost of the cable. Though the cable is cheaper than the multimode, the electronics required to run on the single-mode are expensive. Only, telecom companies have been deploying single-mode fiber in their WANs.

n Price Drops: In India, most of the cables are still imported and the duty rate too is high. As a result, significant price drops were not a norm until the previous years. However, tough market conditions last fiscal saw forced erosion in prices. The pressure came from the unorganized sector, which offered low-priced cabling solutions sourced from the gray market. Major vendors made about 10–12 percent reduction on the price front.

n Improved Channels: The focus of vendors has been on training and consolidating channel partners. Vendors like Molex, D-Link, Krone, Panduit, and Tyco focused on roadshows and education. Moreover, they not only have added stockists and increased their presence to other cities, but have also looked at becoming total solutions providers.

n More Manufacturing in India: Players like Tyco, Molex, Krone and D-Link are having their manufacturing plants expanded and are gearing up to provide products for the global markets. Molex announced that it would be manufacturing majority of the Category 6 products in India. Tyco too is looking at India as a big manufacturing base. Europe would be offloading work to India. It would be manufacturing copper patch chords, fiber optic accessories, and then follow it up with IOs. India is the No 1 priority for all these global vendors in the APAC region.

n New Offers: In line with the standards and even beyond them, players have been launching new products in copper. For example, Krone launched the TrueNet Category 6 solution that offers a 100 percent throughput warranty or a zero bit error rate; Molex will be introducing data patching systems and the patch chords; Tyco introduced OM3 fiber for gigabit Ethernet and AMPACT system among several other products. Belden is bringing into India its patented Bonded Pair technology, wherein conductors in pairs remain attached to each other, ensuring virtually nil impact of installation stresses. It is also to introduce a product that guarantees performance up to 600 MHz. Panduit introduced a complete Category 6 solution and has also launched Panview, an active cable management system.