alt="Jeff Gustaffson, marketing manager for Asia-Pacific" width="118" height="163"> |
Ascend Communications, founded in 1989, has been strong in the remote access segment. A 1997 report by Dell’Oro puts Ascend’s world-wide marketshare in access concentrators for analog, ISDN PRI, and T1 to be 50, 62, and 33 percent, respectively. With last year’s acquisition of Cascade Communications, strong in the Frame Relay segment, Ascend is positioned as a leading provider of technology and equipment solutions for telecom carriers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
size="2">With privatization of Internet services about to |
alt="Paul Whetstone, territory manager, India and Pakistan" width="118" height="151"> |
When are you planning to
establish Ascend’s presence in India?
We have already decided to
establish our presence in India. While we are working on building
our own infrastructure, we already have a local presence through
our reseller Datacraft India.
What has prompted you to
have a direct presence?
The Indian market is just
opening up for Internet and any company going into the business
will have to bring in people from outside who have built very
large networks for Internet and have the technology.
How exciting will be the
private ISP segment here? How do you see India in comparision to
other countries?
Of course, India has the
potential of being one of the most exciting markets in the world,
as there is a very large technology-literate population. The
challenge will be India’s capability to single-mindedly
build an efficient telecommunications infrastructure
size="2"> to handle high bandwidth data communications.
Presently you have only one
reseller in India. Now that you have decided to be more visible,
are you looking at having many more channels?
India is not only a very large
country, it also has many market segments. It is our practice to
identify and recruit the strongest partners for each market
segment, whether it is an industry market segment or geographic
market segment. This approach is good for the resellers as it
helps to avoid most channels conflict. It does provide
alternative sources of products, services, and support when
required.
Potential ISPs in India are
now closely looking at various issues and permutations and
combinations—viability of the business, cost of equipment,
and so on. What are your perceptions as a major vendor targeting
ISPs specifically?
ISPs in India will face issues
similar to most ISPs in the world. The most important being how
to set up and run a profitable business. This means, an ISP must
determine how to differentiate itself from others. If it does
this, it has a better chance of capturing certain market segments
with good quality customers who are willing to pay more money for
the specific value offered by it.
An ISP in order to do this successfully, needs
to build an infrastructure utilizing equipment that has wide
range of functionality, scaleability, superior management, and
compatibility with core access equipment that can offer a managed
network for Quality Of Service (QOS) which is required for voice
and video applications.
Do you integrate as well?
And what kind of consultancy do you provide? Who will take care
of these aspects in India?
We do integrate our products as
we see that it is important to not only be able to provide the
public Internet with best effort delivery policy, but also to
provide public networks which can be fully managed and provide
guaranteed QOS. We can provide a full range of consultancy,
including business and technical. Consultancy can be provided by
Ascend, Ascend’s partners, or a combination.
Do we need end-to-end
solutions at all? Why will the customer go for one company’s
products only rather than choose what is best for him?
A fully integrated end-to-end
solution should be the goal of the customer. The reason for this
is that the cost of hardware ends up to be a small percentage of
the total cost of providing a carrier or ISP solution. The
network should be provided with hardware and software products
that are built to work together because this ultimately will save
cost in the areas that are a much higher percentage of the total
cost, namely developing and managing services.
The Indian market is just opening up for Internet and any company going into the business will have to bring in people from outside who have built very large networks for Internet and have the technology. |
Cost is what everyone out
here is worried of. As a vendor, what are your concerns about it?
Any step or process you are likely to take on this front? Will
smaller players be able to afford becoming an ISP?
First, our products are
competitively priced in the industry. About smaller players being
able to afford becoming an ISP, the fact is that when running an
ISP or carrier, the cost of hardware is actually very small
compared to the costs involved in providing services and managing
the network. It will be smart business management in all areas,
including sales, marketing, service packaging, and support, that
will make an ISP successful, not low-cost hardware.
What are the
products/services you are most likely to provide the private ISPs
here?
We are having discussions with
private ISPs on their requirements. However, the government
decision on releasing licences will result in a much broader
understanding of the business and technology environment.
As you must be aware, the
carrier line conditions out here are not the best. Entrepreneurs
generally lack financial resources. Internet technologies are
still alien to many of us here. Given these, how confident are
you about India? Have you done some homework?
Given a favourable environment,
both in terms of available network capacity and business
conditions, we are very optimistic about our prospects in India.
We are in the process of researching what the total potential
size of the market is. However, we do know that it is very
significant.
Any targets for India ...
We cannot predict this until
there is more stabilization in the political situation. Our
potential revenue is heavily dependant on the presence of a
market.