TopView for Bottomlines

Last month, at one of the TopView industry panel discussions that we had
organized, one very senior industry person walked up to me, embraced me tightly,
shook my hands, and then congratulated me. It was a bit surprising, but he said
that he was moved as well as excited. He explained that the TopView panel
discussion was the first chance he had in five years, when he got a platform to
air his views on mobile applications and interact directly with so many service
providers at one place. He was confident that he, along with some more people
like him, would be able to carry this forward, and do something for the cause of
mobile applications.

About six years ago, at a time when the communications industry was just
about seeing the light of liberalization, there seemed to be no clear idea where
things would be heading for and what everyone wanted. However, the very idea of
the market with a huge potential was fuelling expectations and enthusiasm.

A that time, when VOICE&DATA organized the initial select-group meetings
(which is now very well known as TopView) of cellular operators and later ISPs,
it appeared that among other things, they needed to get together to lobby with
the government. That’s how and when the seeds of organizations, such as COAI
and ISPAI were sown. These organizations have played a key role in actually
getting the industry liberated.

In the middle of 1999, at a time when new networks were coming up, when
enterprise users were focusing on LANs/WANs, we at VOICE&DATA thought it was
important that the reality of Convergence was not ignored. We started with a
nationwide campaign of TopView panel discussions on various aspects of
convergence and have ever since been writing about convergence as a concept that
was being driven by technological innovations, business models, and customer
needs.

Next we took up the issue of Bandwidth where opinion was divided–users said
it was scarce and the government said that it was in excess. The response was
great, and immediately Nasscom agreed to take it up further, as the biggest
beneficiaries from enhanced bandwidth would have been software houses and
IT-enabled services. Operation Bandwidth of Nasscom was launched, and we have
seen international bandwidth go up from about 50 Mbps to about 3 Gbps in a short
span of time.

Today TopView is not just restricted to just one big cause. TopView has been
discussing issues like QoS, mobile application development, and OSS/BSS. And
there are more in the pipeline.

The approach has been to get senior people from the industry, enterprise
users, and policy makers at one place. Point by point the subject is thrown at
the experts for their opinions, ideas and suggestions. Later, the audience also
joins in. The highlights of the discussions are carried in the magazine for the
benefit of the entire industry. We believe that like convergence and bandwidth,
the big and critical issues will automatically be taken up by lobbyists and
industry bodies.

All our ideas for TopView panel discussions have come from our readers. But
we want more ideas. If there is something, which you feel is an important yet
ignored issue, let us know. We are ready to raise any issue that will help
communications in the country improve.