Acterna Partners with Tellabs to Manage Powergrid Backbone

Acterna India has been appointed by Tellabs India to test and manage the network of PowerGrid India between Delhi and Mumbai. Tellabs, which has provided the DWDM and SDH equipment for the network, has outsourced the testing and management of the network to
Acterna. 

The PowerGrid backbone is a carrier network and provides capacity to service providers in the backbone between Delhi and Mumbai. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee inaugurated the network in October at Lucknow. Testing and measuring the network in addition to managing it requires a high degree of skill sets not easily available with service providers. Despite the criticality of the job role, the T&M (test and measurement) industry went through tough times along with the downturn faced by the telecom industry. As such Acterna underwent a repositioning in its business offering during the end of 2001 from just providing instruments and measuring capability, it also began offering management services. The company's span of activities include test and management services to service providers, network designers and equipment manufacturers across all aspects of the network process.

Said Vishnu Goel, Managing Director, India and South Asia Pacific, "Network measurement involves characterization of the physical and electrical parameters of the network which essentially determines the quality of output." While earlier, Acterna's role was restricted to just the characterization, the evolved model offers remedies to the gap in characterization. 

Acterna already has four operators as its clients which includes BSNL for 65 nodes across the country, HFCL Infotel in Punjab, Bharti's IndiaOne and Sterling Cellular in
Chennai.

The new business have brought in rich benefits for the company as its revenue has registered a 70 percent-80 percent increase during 2001-02 over the previous fiscal. This year also the company expects an increase of 20 percent-30 percent increase in its revenue as a result of the new business initiative. Goel estimates the new service has racked in additional revenues of over 20 percent during the two years it has been offered.