Communications Blues Is India Ready?

One does not need too much to describe or analyze the current communications
scenario, worldwide. In the US and Europe, there is over capacity in terms of
networks, and there is slowdown in the economy. Experts believe that market
pick-up will not happen before the mid 2003 time frame. Adding to all this, is
the WTC disaster, and the impending war that America threatens to start, any
day. At a time when uncertainties in the US and Europe have a direct impact on
the developing nations, what is in store for us here in Asia-Pacific and India?

Thanks to the comparatively small telecom base that we are starting with,
there is a big growth potential for several years. To that extent, telecom
companies in this region are not under so much pressure.

This is also, a critical time for a major involvement of the government. We
have seen that in some of the countries in the South East Asia, governments are
playing a pivotal role in laying down the national communications road map.
India, on the other hand, is still struggling with basic policy issues, and
controversies. There seems to be no sense of urgency coming on the bureaucrats
at the DoT or the ministry. The new telecom minister, Pramod Mahajan, has still
not come out with any significant announcement on any front, which could have
given the industry some idea about his plans.

On the enterprise datacom front, vendors have been reporting good growth even
in the AMJ and JAS quarters, this year. This is likely to be slowed down a bit,
but not much. The enterprises continue to consolidate their IT strategies, and
getting networks and connectivity in place is one aspect of consolidation.

One expects that with increasing pressure on the US and the European economy,
a lot of outsourcing will be needed. This in turn could be an opportunity for
offering more communications-enabled services from India, including call center
services.

The scene is likely to be better for others in the region. At a recent show
in Singapore, CommunicAsia, an all time high of 2,400 companies from fifty-four
countries had participated. And majority of them were vendors and service
providers from Asia, though very few from India. Clearly, the other Asia-Pacific
players are quite upbeat. Statistics from ITU motivates them — more than 50
percent of worlds telecom equipment and services market will be in Asia Pacific
by 2010, about 50 percent of worlds mobile users will be in this region, and so
on. They see opportunities. So they believe that they need to be strong at home.
That is what will see them through.

Ibrahim Ahmed