There will be more focus on 'borderless business' in 2010

How critical is Verizon's Europe India Gateway?

The 15,000 km cable network system will connect three continents at a cost
of more than $700 mn. It will have a design capacity of upto 3.84 terabits per
second. The new system, named the Europe India Gateway (EIG), is the third major
submarine cable project that Verizon has helped in launching in the last four
years. EIG will provide not only a second, diverse route from India to Europe,
but also enable direct access to our network in Europe. It will enable us to
offer our customers reduced latency, reduced provisioning time and increased
reliability.

What are your plans for the ILD and NLD licenses?

We planned to offer a full range of services, including international
private leased circuits with MPLS and IP services, which would complement our
existing Indian operations. A milestone in this regard was the approval from the
DoT to operate two international gateways in Mumbai and Chennai (under the
international long distance license). This allowed us to offer a suite of
private line services to multinational customers and to activate the company's
wholly owned submarine cable capacity to India.

What are your focus areas for the Indian market?

Our 'sweet spot' are the MNCs operating in three or more countries. In
India, we have strong interactions with companies that are operating in global
markets and in the vertical markets of financial services, high-tech, and
business process outsourcing than education or retail. We have activated private
IP nodes in major Indian business centers, offering customers a direct link to
our global MPLS network. Besides, we have extended our remote IP application
management service to India. We have also released our enterprise mobility
services in India, making it simpler for multinational customers with local
operations to manage their mobility costs. Finally, optical undersea mesh
deployments in Mumbai and Chennai have contributed to our optical undersea
meshing encircling the globe.

What are the major trends in the enterprise mobility space?

Firstly, there will be more focus on the idea of 'borderless business' in
2010. Borderless businesses are embracing the use of video, collaborative
applications, and other networked services, and delivering them across the
enterprise, using technology that can more easily be managed and scaled.
Secondly, and of course, linked, there will be a big focus on mobilizing the
workforce in the borderless business environment. From telework to telepresence,
the ability to collaborate via wired and wireless technology embodies the modern
workplace.

Gagandeep Kaur

gagandeepk@cybermedia.co.in