HSPA will make huge impact in India

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HSPA will make huge impact in India

HSPA technology can act as a major vehicle for social and economic empowerment and also help to bridge the rural-urban gap, says Hakan Eriksson, CTO, Ericsson

Jatinder Singh

Friday, January 09, 2009

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NEW DELHI, INDIA: Born in Mjölby, Sweden, in 1961, Hakan Eriksson, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Chief Technology Officer, Ericsson is responsible for development activities carried out in Ericsson's Core Network Development, Radio Network Development and Service Network and Applications, as well as for Ericsson Research.

He joined Ericsson in 1986, representing the company as a technical expert in GSM standardization work and he has held a number of senior positions in the Research and Development field for Ericsson in Sweden and internationally. He graduated with a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Linköping Institute of Technology, Sweden, in 1985.

For him, the essence of technology lies in its continuous development and India represents a huge potential in this space. In a recent interaction with Voice&Data, he discussed Ericsson's initiatives, relevance of new technologies and growth plans in India and global market. Excerpts.

VnD: India is a key market for global telecom players. What is Ericsson's expansion plan in India in terms of infrastructure, investments, etc?

Hakan Eriksson: For Ericsson, India is a strategically important country. We are conducting various development projects in the country. The production and R&D focus is also very strong. In both, Delhi and Chennai, we have our R&D resources and we are leveraging the technical knowledge and talent base in the country.

VnD: What lessons have you learnt from India in the technology space?

Hakan Eriksson: Well, it's quite an interesting question to answer. Usually, the effectiveness of technology and its utilization remains more or less the same in all the regions across countries. I believe, the concept of maximum coverage in a cost-effective manner is essentially started in India. This is an area where market is generating profits despite low ARPU's.

Also, in mobile space the micro recharge business model has reached to new heights, especially in rural areas. The concept of micro recharge was essentially gained popularity by India and it has helped in addressing the rural market. It is not so popular anywhere else in the world. This clearly indicates that the significance of developing business models as per the market demands.

Furthermore, it is always essential to develop and work as per the market needs and its future requirements as sometimes the industry and organizations can waste millions of rupees on a particular technology, which bears no fruit in the end.

VND: What are the new technology focus areas?

HE: In terms of new initiatives, we are working in wireless side, to provide base stations that consume less power and base stations that operate without air conditioner. Also, there are new projects going on to utilize solar cell power to help operators to expand their network in rural and remote areas.

We recently implemented the first solar-powered solution in Cambodia. The solution aimed to offer affordable communications and is based on our energy-optimized main-remote base-station. In multimedia space we have already launched the Ericsson Multimedia Communication Suite (MCS) for consumers in order to provide popular services on the Internet in a new and enhanced mobile way.

CIOL: Ericsson has been operating in several countries. What are the key operational differences; you have noticed between China and India, the two fastest growing markets in the world?

HE: Both India and China are the key telecom markets at a global space. They both represents as a large market share for operators and vendors. There are not big operational differences between these two. However, the adoption of technology and the time frame could be one of the significant factors of difference, if any. Both countries have shown tremendous growth in the adoption of GSM technology.

The Time Division Synchronous CDMA (TD-SCDMA) technology has already evolved in the China market and LTE is also emerging in a big way. At present, we are working on a TD-SCDMA-based 4G solution for the China market. Similarly, Indian market would also see the egression of LTE and evolution of various similar technologies in the future.

CIOL: Last year, Ericsson launched the 3G HSPA based Gramjyoti Rural Broadband Project. In your opinion, what are the prospects of this technology in the Indian market?

HE: High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is clearly a dominant technology. It has established itself as the mobile broadband or broadband wireless technology. It provides a DSL-like experience wirelessly with real-time mobility. At present, there are more than 200 HSPA networks globally, serving more than 240 million subscribers in nearly 100 countries.

The technology can act as a major vehicle for social and economic empowerment and also help to bridge the rural-urban gap. In India, HSPA is going to become the future. Like the Gramajyoti project, which we had launched in September 2007, we can roll out the similar projects in entire India in the future. Further, 3G HSPA furnishes economy of scale to operators, as the basic infrastructure required for its rollout, already exists in the country, which is basically not the case with WiMax.

According to WiMax forum, the figures of Mobile WiMax could be over100 mn by 2012 and probably by then HSPA could be 1.2 bn. It would be the same way as GSM is winning over CDMA. HSPA will win over the WiMax over economies of scale. For us, the top priority is to connect the rural India and HSPA is a technology that could make a big impact in this arena.

We are using the HSPA technology to bring various services such as telemedicine to millions of people in remote areas. We are also working with various companies to develop HSPA mobile broadband connections to laptops. There are lots of things that government wants to do like e-learning, telemedicine etc and the advance technologies such as holds the potential to deliver the same in a fast and cost effective way.

CIOL: With 3 G taking off in India, what benefits can Ericsson provide to the Indian subscribers? What are your rural strategies for the same?

HE:We are working with majority of operators in this space to provide infrastructure and related support. Globally, we have over 40% market in 3G space and 50% in GSM space. The 3G technology has got a lot of potential and can efficaciously used for voice. We will use our expertise and global experience to create a wide impact in the Indian market. For the rural projects, we are already working with leading operators and we have projects such as Gramajyoti.

As I already mentioned, we are working on the concepts of utilizing solar energy to provide accessibility to rural and far-flung areas where there is a shortage of electric power. It is imperative to make cost effective business models to achieve maximum rural coverage. The success of rural coverage depends upon getting as much coverage possible with fewer sites and base stations. The cost effective technology essentially means the usage of advanced technology, instead of cheap technology.

There is nothing lacking, its only a matter of time that the rural market would be connected in a big way in India. With the possibility of sharing towers, advancement of new technologies such, the ecosystem will be change and we all are working hard to achieve the same.

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Prateek said on 1/14/2009 11:00:46 PM:
Good interview

to Prateek

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