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RAS, The most promising

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VoicenData Bureau
New Update

One unique thing about

Asia-Pacific region in general and India, in particular, is that here networking of

computers is happening at a time when the networking technologies–and even

concepts–are changing everyday. So when one talks of networking in India, every

product is but new to India. Every vertical market is severely untapped.

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The product segments remained

dormant in the early stages of networking trends. These are showing up now with the start

of an important development. Our fast developing telecom infrastructure has given birth to

remote connectivity as the next wave in networking in the country. A big need is felt

today for bandwidth and wide area connectivity. And for that, an able telecom/datacom

infrastructure is indispensable. The public communication resources available today are

simply inadequate for further multiplication of networks. Telephone lines are far too less

in numbers and are not suited to enable seamless and fast data/voice communication between

remote locations. The circuit-switched network that was built decades ago was not meant

for packet-switched traffic of data, voice, pictures, and video that populate/will

populate the new networks. The option today is to either digitalize this network, or build

a completely new network attuned to our times.



Our fast

developing telecom infrastructure has given birth to remote connectivity as the next wave

in networking in the country.

To top it all, Internet has taken

everything and everyone by storm. IP packets are everywhere today. In the systems and

pipes within organizations and in large switches and fat pipes in the telco networks. The

Internet seems to have completed the convergence of the private and public networks.

Private ISPs are mushrooming everywhere. Soon there will be only one large network, the

Internet. The rest would be subsets. And the outline of a robust network is beginning to

take place. The real issue is not whether or not, but how soon!

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Vendors already have a wind of

the things to come and have started positioning themselves for the future demand. Products

that revolve around IP technology, products that are based on packet-switching, and

products that drive convergence of technologies are just around the corner; ready to take

their place in the public networks of tomorrow. Networking products that enable broadband

access are also not far away. Out of whatever little activity that has occurred in this

domain, a clear picture comes out as to what product markets are emerging.

 

Remote Access Server

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  • RAS has been the hottest

    segment in the networking industry ever since the Internet industry opened up in November

    last. The market for this product was just Rs 1.5 crore in the previous year as compared

    to Rs 33.85 crore in fiscal 1998-99. With Internet rapidly multiplying its base and reach,

    the real activity will be in the RAS market. The last quarter of fiscal 1998-99 and the

    first month of the current fiscal have been quite hectic. And this is just the begining.

  • RAS is an open and shut carrier

    equipment. In India, it has not yet gone into the enterprise networks as a device which

    enables remote connectivity.

  • Almost src="segment_a1.gif" width="279" height="171"

    alt="* Others include Ascend, Tata Lucent, Tata IBM, Cabletron, D-Link, LanBit, etc."

    align="right" border="0" hspace="4" vspace="4">all

    the RAS ports that were sold in India were consumed by ISPs. The total base of RAS ports

    in India is estimated at about a little over 40,000. Out of this, 38,000 were added last

    year. That the RAS market is dominantly driven by private ISPs is evident from the fact

    that out of the 38,000 ports installed last year, only about 10,000 were added before the

    privatization of Internet services in November.

  • VSNL, with its 40 plus presence

    and two and a half million subscribers, is the largest customer. As an ISP, it has come

    out with several tenders inviting bids for RAS equipment. It placed a multi-thousand port

    case during November on Nortel. The total installed RAS base in VSNL is more than 20,000

    ports, a considerable share of it getting installed last year. Not surprisingly, with the

    bulk of deals commanded by it, VSNL commands and gets the lowest prices for their

    purchases.

  • On an average, the price per

    port of a RAS is Rs 8,400 for large deals. But for VSNL it costs less than Rs 7,000, as a

    major chunk of the orders come from it.





RAS has

been the hottest segment in the networking industry ever since the Internet industry

opened up in November last. The market grew to Rs 33.85 crore in 1998-99.

  • Among the private ISPs, Satyam

    Infoway and Bharti BT Internet have bought a couple of thousand ports each. MTNL also has

    acquired about a thousand ports. They have all taken up RAS systems with just enough port

    configurations to suffice their first phase of operation. The scalable boxes that they

    have gone in for gives them the option of putting in more ports as and when required.

  • The smaller class C and B ISPs

    like Weikfield Mnemonix, Wilnet Communications, Southern Online, and Palcom have opted for

    much smaller configurations of RAS.

  • There width="287" height="183" alt="https://img-cdn.thepublive.com/filters:format(webp)/vnd/media/post_attachments/1f313ab2b1c7f5cb73d13f2b2d08619cc31207f8d5632a7784071524f8e32621.gif (17779 bytes)" align="right" border="0"

    hspace="6" vspace="6">are more than 10 brands of RAS in the market at present. A year

    back, Cisco was the only RAS provider in the country, with VSNL as its main customer. As

    the demand for RAS is coming from ISPs spread across the country, all

    vendors–regional as well as national–have benefited from the first wave of RAS

    implementation that came in the last quarter of fiscal 1998-99. Larger players like Cisco,

    Nortel, and 3Com have bagged orders worth over 5,000 ports from the national ISPs. The

    smaller ISPs have procured equipment from vendors like Specialix and Tata Lucent.

  • Within a short span of six

    months opening up of the private ISPs, new technologies are becoming popular. At least two

    operational ISPs went in for digital E1 lines on the local exchang side instead of

    individual lines. This immediately spawned the need for digital ports in terms of RAS

    equipment.

  • n RASs that are capable of

    running several types of access–including cable, wireless, in addition to PSTN and

    ISDN access–from the same big box are being put to test. Cisco, Ascend, Nortel, 3Com,

    and Lucent, to name a few, have such types of boxes to offer. ISP premises have truly

    become the testbeds for tomorrow’s technologies.

  • Though Cisco retains its hold

    with a 41 percent market-share in the field, its dominance has been challenged by Nortel

    Networks and 3Com. Nortel grabbed 20.8 percent of the market-share, while 3Com improved

    largely in the fag-end of the year gathering about 14.8 percent of the market. It was a

    year of surprises. VSNL, which had been giving all orders to Cisco till last year, tried

    out a new RAS from Nortel. It was a year which saw the emergence of 10-odd brands and

    when, for the first time, market-shares could be worked out.

  • For every 10 subscribers to the

    Internet, a port is required. It is predicted that there will be one million subscribers

    by the turn of the century. The ISPs will need about 75,000 ports till the year-end. If

    these predictions are to be believed, there will be enough space for all vendors. We might

    see the emergence of newer brands like Shiva, now part of Intel.

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Carrier Datacom Switch Equipment

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  • This market is fast emerging as

    the cream of the datacom market. With data traffic multiplying at a blitzy pace, the

    carriers have no chance of going back to circuit switches for the networks of tomorrow.

    The carrier datacom switch segment is indeed a high-value market, each telco deployment

    being worth crores of rupees. Vendors did well to sell more than a handful of such

    switches which meant a total business of Rs 41.8 crore.

  • The width="165" height="184" alt="* In carrier datacom switch equipment." align="right"

    border="0" hspace="4" vspace="4">convergence of services and increasing high-bandwidth of

    the network have caused a paradigm shift in the way carriers look at networks today. So

    the carriers are being forced to go in for these new switches. The other advantage is that

    of optimum usage of a network. Newer technologies like TDM, packet-switching, and

    ATM/Frame Relay switching score over traditional circuit switches in saving a lot of

    bandwidth resources.

  • Carrier switches are taking on

    the capability of not only carrying traditional TDM kind of traffic but also varied mix of

    traffic like ATM, Frame Relay, xDSL, cable, etc. It is a multimedia network that this

    switch will try enabling.

  • MTNL was the first carrier to

    implement a managed data network within India and has consumed more than half of the

    carrier datacom switches installed in India. It is learnt that MTNL has more than 25,000

    leased lines operational. There are two distinct advantages of a managed network in such a

    scenario. One, it saves a lot of bandwith. Two, preferential services are possible. A

    slice of bandwidth for a slice of time is what the new switches are able to deliver. It is

    also possible to identify the points of failure. During the last fiscal, MTNL added more

    equipment to its data network. Orders worth more than Rs 8 crore were awarded to Tellabs

    for this purpose.

  • Taking a cue from MTNL, others

    like VSNL, DoT, and some private basic/cellular service providers are also in the process

    of either updating their legacy networks or building frameworks for tomorrow. VSNL has

    implemented a switch solution for providing international private leased circuits to its

    customers, while DoT has also gone in for a similar switch platform for its own leased

    line services in its state and city circles. A few ISPs are also known to be building

    high-speed multi-services backbone for their future services. Global E-Commerce Service

    Ltd and Satyam Infoway have already taken the plunge.



The

carrier datacom switch market is fast emerging as the cream of the datacom market. This

segment is indeed a high-value market, each telco deployment being worth crores of rupees.

The total business was Rs 41.8 crore.

  • Unlike the box products which

    are sold to the enterprises, the carrier market is truly a solutions market. Here,

    business is project based. The provider of the switch platform either implements it

    totally or plays a major part. A case in point being Tellabs which invoices its business

    in terms of orders rather than equipment sold. No wonder that the value of a switch order

    often runs into crores of rupees.

  • This is still an evolving

    segment. And technologies like ATM and DSL that are presently being tried out in India are

    quite new to other parts of the world also. As of now, Enhanced TDM and Frame Relay are

    being tested more actively. In future, ATM is likely to become very popular. VSNL and DoT

    have come out with huge tenders for ATM equipment.

  • Tellabs, with a market share of

    about 60 percent, is the undisputed leader in this segment. It is followed by Nortel

    Networks with 33 percent. Martis DXX of Tellabs is the most visible platform present in

    more than five carrier networks. Nortel Networks, for the first time, has entered this

    marketscape with the large Global E-Commerce win. Newbridge, which is a strong player in

    the high-end enterprise LAN/WAN switch market, also did some good business. And 3Com has

    been successful in placing some of its Total Control solutions in the carrier space.

  • The outlook for this

    high-profile segment is good. The National Telecom Policy 1999 explicitly allows

    packet-switched networks for cellular/basic service providers. It also encourages

    multi-service networks. This will greatly help the deployment of this technology.

  • Once long-distance service is

    opened, a few backbone providers will look at the business of building alternate

    data-centric backbone for high-speed data which will be leased out to the local operators.

    That will be another opportunity for carrier switches.

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High-speed Modems (64 kbps and above)

  • With increasing usage of leased

    lines, the need for high-speed modems or CSU/DSUs has suddenly gone up. A negligible

    market, which was dominated by RAD at the customer-end and Motorola at the carrier-end

    till last year, has undergone a turnaround. High-speed modem/CSU/DSU brought in about Rs

    22 crore in sales in 1998-99.

  • Leased src="segment_a4.gif" alt="* In high-speed modems." align="right" border="0" hspace="4"

    vspace="4" width="165" height="183">lines terminate either on a high-speed standalone

    modem or on an integrated router module within a RAS. Unlike RASs, modems have been around

    for a long time in the networks of VSNL, MTNL, and DoT. At the subscriber-end, a

    subscriber goes in for a modem more often than a router.

  • High-speed modems are priced at

    a lower price than routers. While router prices vary from Rs 1 lakh to multitudes of it,

    an average 64 kbps leased-line modem costs about Rs 70,000 and an average 2 Mbps leased

    line modem comes at a little above Rs 1 lakh. CSU/DSUs on the other hand can come as cheap

    as Rs 30,000 and go up to Rs 70,000.

  • The most significant cause for

    the surge in demand for high-speed modems is the falling prices of leased-lines. A 64 kbps

    leased-line costs under Rs 1 lakh per year for distances beyond 500 km and much less for

    shorter distances. A 2 Mbps leased-line costs Rs 22 lakh for distances beyond 500 km but

    under Rs 1 lakh for a distance of 10 km or less.

  • The move towards a better

    future for the family of leased-line modems began even before the announcement of the

    above tariff by TRAI. The opening up of the Internet access market has proved to be a

    harbinger of good days. As many as six new ISPs have already become operational; a few of

    them operating in more than just the metros. They have gone in for several leased circuits

    to connect to the VSNL Internet gateways and also to interconnect their points of

    presence. All this has meant good business for high-speed modem vendors.

  • A growing Internet-based

    industry also means increased demand for bandwidth. This long standing demand is destined

    to boom in the very near future. And it augurs well for the high-speed modem market.

  • Approximately 40 percent of the

    modem-market is being consumed by the carrier-side, while the rest 60 percent accounted

    for by the subscriber-end. The government holds a monopoly on the carrier-side. The

    rate-contract tenders of VSNL and the tenders of MTNL/DoT were large and well contested.

    Among the private ISPs, Satyam Infoway spent more than one crore on the purchases. On the

    consumer-side, the banking and finance sector has been the most prolific buyer. In fact,

    nearly 50 percent of the RAD modems have been consumed by this segment.

  • RAD, the popular Israeli brand,

    is the number one brand in India in high-speed modems. It has complete market monopoly

    with about 68 percent of the market-share. It won the most prestigious carrier deals with

    VSNL and Satyam recently.

  • Motorola follows far behind. It

    was hardly active in the market last year until Convergent India became its authorized

    distributor. The lacunae that was left by its absence was filled in by players like

    Pairgain, Patton, and Cygnus Microsystems.

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