Tellabs is a pioneer in promoting innovative solutions in the country. While it indoctrinated the concept for multi-service networks for e-governance, getting the AP government to go in for State WAN (SWAN), it evinced DoT to go in for major MDN activity in 1998-99. Another pioneering effort that it has attempted is the concept of corporate Internet.

Tellabs grew from Rs 39.6 crore in 1998-99 to Rs 63.38 crore in 1999-00. Typically, it has been the telco and government segments that add up to a significant portion of its net revenues, though in 1999-00, it was the banking and finance sector. Out of the total revenues last year, this sector accounted for 55 percent, and the telecom and ISP sector contributed 45 percent.

Interestingly, though it has been a long waiting time from the moment it sold the concept and got the order, the order sizes have always been very high. The APSWAN order, for example, has been worth Rs 22 crore in 1998-99. And in 1999-00, it was the MTNL order which was worth Rs 14.4 crore. It was also part of the largest networking project of the year, the BSE project of broadband-DSL based data network for online trading.

This year would be an aggressive one for Tellabs as a lot of optical backbone infrastructure deployment is on the anvil, turnkey corporate-class ISP networks maybe rolled out, and at least three state-wide WANs are expected to be launched, and a host of GSM operators may launch the GPRS systems.