-Mark Hoogerbrugge, GM India and
director Global Partners, Actix
You
have been operating in India for so long but don't have any direct presence.
What's the reason?
We have been operating in India for couple of years and have now decided to
open an office in India. We will be headquartered in Noida and have offices in
Mumbai as well. The process of making India, a legal entity will take another
couple of months.
Don't
you think you are a late entrant in this market?
I think it's the right time for us. We have been operating in India
through our partners and are quite known in service providers' domain. We have
solutions that address service providers' issues by enabling operators to
squeeze more out of their existing network investments, to maximize spectral
efficiencies, and to accelerate network acceptance processes.
How
will opening up of India office would help you gain mindshare?
We
will start with seven people in India as sales agents and subsequently expand
our team in India as well as product portfolio. Actix will also be launching its
Certified Engineers program in India. Providing three levels of certification to
enable more seamless mobility among engineers, it will be of particular value to
Indian telecom-services firms participating in the global market place. We
already have Agilent as our partner and after opening up of India office, we
will be having more partners, but we do continue direct selling also.
With
3G coming up, do you have any specific solutions to address this next generation
network?
The opening-up of India office is basically aimed at targeting the 3G
market. We have solution in place to tackle this market. We have 90% global
market share in the UMTS & EV-DO space. The company's global expertise and
best practices will help Indian operators achieve a much smoother transition.
Actix solutions are already used to address similar problems with over 200
operators worldwide, including nine out of ten 3G operators. Actix solutions
enable expert engineers to embed their 'trouble-shooting' best practices
into its tools so that junior engineers can become operational almost
immediately.
How
will your software solution would address service providers' issue?
The Actix software will enable operators to reduce the time required to
generate performance reports for new site or new cluster acceptance, sign-off of
contractually agreed performance metrics, obtain detailed performance analysis
of specific areas, comparing scanner data against UMTS UE measurements and
dealing with the increasing spectrum density for GSM /GPRS/EDGE. It would help
service providers gaining full understanding of the subscriber experience. Also
it would automate many recurring engineering tasks and analyses.
How
can service providers address the problem of lower ARPUs?
India's mobile market is booming with a huge growth in subscribers
every month. Meeting the requirements of urban density requirements versus rural
coverage requirements, constantly changing urban environments and the emerging
problems of getting new generation services to work are presenting major
challenges to the operators. On top of this they must provide a cost effective
service in one of the most competitive markets in the world, where subscriber
numbers are high, but average revenue per user is so low
While India's mobile
marketplace has one of the world's lowest ARPU, operators must continue to
invest to meet new service demands in an environment characterized by high
salary inflation, booming real estate values and the challenges of providing
coverage for remote rural communities on a cost effective basis. And as Indian
RF engineers are sought after globally, wireless engineering resources are in
short supply too. We help service providers dealing with such issues.
Rahul Gupta
rahulg@cybermedia.co.in
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