IP: Where Should The Money Go?

From a network point of view, lot of investment has been

made over the last few years. More of course needs to be done, but we are a

growing economy and the need for more investment will hopefully continue for

many decades to come.

But as that network becomes seamless, to be able to put it

to some efficient use, backend infrastructure applications and services are

going to be needed, says Sandip Gupta, president and CEO, Ensim.

That is a pretty amazing statement to make. He adds,

“There is nothing new out there. It is standard hardware and standard

operating systems. The applications can provide the new services on this

infrastructure.”

Today the communications equipment that was supposed to be

hardware at some point for delivering voice is now a software. This software

could be replacing the voicemail servers and the conferencing servers. These

applications can run over on-premise IP infrastructure or they can even be

hosted in the data center of a service provider, or the service provider may

have a co-location facility with someone else, and the two may jointly serve the

customer over the network.

The Question is Already Answered



“Would you like to use your rotary phone today, at home or at work?”

asks Ankur Lal of Infozech Software. Obviously, there is a space for the EPBX,

but that is in a community where the scale of communications is lower. Today we

have 120 mn phones in India. We also have 5 mn phones added each month. So

minutes of usage for most business users have dramatically increased. That is

why IVR usage is coming in. IVR did not exist 5 years ago. If you don't have

to do IVR, a rotary phone is perfect.

There are applications that our businesses needs today. For

our lifestyles to be more productive, we need those applications to happen.

Similarly, an IP infrastructure getting embedded into a network today, is almost

a must since it is going to overlay applications and voice. That is really the

pay off. The payoff in productivity should be far greater than the direct pay

off in cost.

Should investment be made in IP infrastructure? The

question has been asked in all possible ways and the answer has remained a big

'yes'. There are regulatory hurdles to full utilization of an IP

infrastructure, the adoption is still very low, but nobody denies that in the

long run the IP investment will pay off. Taking cue from that, and from the

efficiencies and economies inherent in the IP technology, a lot of investment

has gone into the access infrastructure on IP. But that technology is not really

going down to the users.

Won't it Be Expensive?



However, if IP technology was to be fully rolled out, even to the end

consumer's level, what would happen to the circuit-switched and the PSTN

network? The same as what happened to the typewriters. The service providers may

feel the pinch in the short term, but even they will benefit in the long run.

Hypothetically, if there were to be an all-IP in the next five years, the 120 mn

odd phones users of today would diminish in significance to the 500 mn that

would become possible in the next 4-5 years.

As far as costs go, all cost savings would come to naught

if the network goes down. Of course, the TDM network has proven itself, but so

has the IP network. In the Mumbai deluge, it was the IP network that stayed lit,

not the PSTN or the PLMN. So the IP architecture is inherently strong. Put a

price to business continuity, and there is the strongest ever justification to

do what British Telecom is doing with its 21 CN. Even without such drastic

measures, any more investment in the circuit switched infrastructure will only

take everybody away from the potential billions that could be reaped from the IP

infrastructure.

Technology does not Matter: Applications Do



To be precise, the need for investing in IP technology infrastructure will

remain, but what after that? So, it is all very fine to keep on investing in

newer protocols, faster processors, and more storage-but all this to what end?

So, at one end the enterprises of today would have to start

investing in applications. Or else, it would be like using a Nokia 9500i for a

'lifetime free' service only. Enterprises should have more sense than that.

However, the market for these applications is not very

mature for now. Says Gupta to his fellow developers of communications software,

“You should start selling in the markets that are available today. And invest

money and resources to get credibility in those markets. Get the first few proof

points. And as the market matures, you make small investments, and come back.”

Regulation Strangulation



A lot of this investment may already have come in and many more

'next-generation' communications applications would have found market, if

the regulatory regime was to allow fully converged networks. To be fair,

converged networks are emerging and the growth and investment into IP equipment

(hardware and software) is reflective of that. However, the IP technologies can

achieve very little if they are compartmentalized and kept reserved for the

enterprises only.

Internationally, the boom in this industry has come in with

the entry of the consumers. We are already doing 5 mn customers a month. The

economies of IP and the pull of its applications' feature sets could see this

rate hasten up.

And the Money Goes to...



There will have to be the investment in IP infrastructure, innovating the

services, and delivering the services. This will mean that besides the

investment in hardware and applications development, there will necessarily have

to be a lot of investment in the last mile. This may take whatever form: more

copper, fiber to the home, or wireless technologies. But unless the last man is

reached, the network would remain a limited network.

The IP story in India is not likely to go the Europe, US,

or the Korea, way. These markets were characterized by an abundance of

broadband, when the IP boom began to take over. The IP story in India, says Lal,

is more likely to go the way it has in economies such as the Philippines or

Thailand. In these countries, like in India, the predominant CPE for accessing

the data (or IP) services is a mobile handheld device.

Security



The biggest hurdle to the adoption of IP technologies remains their

perceived vulnerability to security threats. Enough development has been done to

make IP applications secure, but the successes have been dogged by much

publicized and much too frequent successful network attacks. When all is said

and done, this is likely to remain as the last hurdle. Also, the vendors are

pushing these services to the consumers with assurances of security, whereas

these assurances are being constantly torn to pieces with the frequent security

breaches.

Security is definitely one of the major areas where

investment must be made if IP services are to see a wider adoption among the

masses and the enterprises.

Alok Singh



aloksi@cybermedia.co.in