"How voice is handled by the enterprises will be influenced by service providers"

How voice will be handled within the enterprises will increasingly be influenced by the service providers, said Gary Jackson, VP, Asia Operatios, Cisco Systems, in an exclusive interview with Voice & Data. He said faster adoption of IP by service providers will lead to smoother integration of the enterprise data networks with their service providers' networks.

And once, the flexibility and capability of IP is realized, voice will be the next application to ride on it, even in the enterprises. Cisco dreams of providing an IP based alternative to today's closed EPABX systems in vogue in enterprises. Admitting that the service provider market has been a little slow in the recent months, Jackson said, Asia however is different and India and China will continue to grow. He however was not sure whether new private service providers in India would take to IP core networks.

Jackson disclosed that 40 percent of Cisco's revene comes from service provider segment. Jackson also disclosed that most GSM orders bagged by Motorola and Nokia in Asia and India will have Cisco as the supplier of IP backbone. "Even though you guys don't hear our name, we will be actually doing a good amount of work in building the backbone of your wireless networks," he quipped. On a week long visit to India next week, Jackson will be in Mumbai for business meetings and Agra to see the "magnificent" Taj.