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V&D100,2013: T&M- Down but not Out

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Ritu
New Update

Of late, the Indian test and measurement (T&M) market has seen a significant growth, driven by both global and domestic demands with increasing investments in design, R&D and manufacturing for

all major electronics markets, including telecom, aerospace, defense, automotive, consumer electronics, contract manufacturing, semiconductors, etc.

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While, the slide of the Indian rupee, weak investment sentiment and slow progress on the manufacturing front were affecting the growth of the T&M sector in India, the overall performance

has been above average this year with certain business segments doing exceptionally very well. The strongest growth has been witnessed in the radio mobile communication market.

While rupee's slide, weak investment sentiment, and slow manufacturing progress affected the growth of the T&M sector in India to a great extent, the overall performance was not that disappointing.

Some of the key technological trends driving the industry in India include urbanization, growing infrastructure, wireless communications (3G/4G/WiFi/Bluetooth), high-fidelity audio and HD video in consumer electronics devices, and smart and green technologies amongst others.

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All these are accelerating the demand for new technology testing solutions. Organizations as well as consumers are increasingly looking for anytime, anywhere, always-on internet access with improved levels of QoE from the various applications they use every day.

New mobile devices are driving the need for faster wireless networks such as 3G/LTE, while down loadable applications are increasing both revenue and customer loyalty.

Nowadays, customers desire for more data intensive applications like internet banking, stock trading, web surfing, and video conferencing mobile TV, etc, and it is moving towards mobile networks. The

increased demand for mobile services and low acceptance for poor quality has spurned investment in new technologies as well as the backhaul and core portions of the network.

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Only an efficient T&M platform can determine whether or not these investments have any impact on customer QoE. Also, R&D operations of major companies are working on revolutionary technologies of the future, and have the needs of test equipment which help them test these technologies for future-readiness.

Product development companies, on the other hand, have needs for testing their products faster and cheaper to ensure fast time-to-market with cost competitiveness.

Industry Trend

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The biggest trend in the industry today is convergence driven by scale, simplicity and security. Data Center Scale: 10G Ethernet densities continue to grow on data center top of rack switches with growing demand for integrated high density 40G (scale) SDN/OpenFlow Deployment: As data center implementations mature, market focus will shift to integrating network virtualization into the service provider networks, which begins with databasecentric functions like route policy and management, traffic engineering, and subscriber access. (simplicity)

Securing the Mobile Internet: Expect to see a growing demand to secure both the physical and virtual infrastructure and improve the performance of securing data center interconnects with 40G and 100G Firewalls/IPS interfaces. (security)

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Challenges

Although the T&M market is growing at a steady pace, it does have its share of challenges, especially in the wake of the rapidly evolving communication technologies. LTE is growing in both complexities

as both voice and data begin to be carried over LTE and in density as more subscribers demand reliable high-speed access.

Customers are also increasing their reliance on LTE, making it a business-critical service for operators.

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Different categories of test and measurement instruments are required for the wireless communication industry ranging from early design and development, through volume manufacturing, to network deployment and service assurance.

The launch of LTE and BWA represents the constant evolution of networks which would result in business opportunity for test to achieve operational efficiency. The steep depreciation of the Indian currency has made the imports of T&M equipment very difficult, hitting the government and defense customers whose budgets and approvals are done more than one year prior to actual procurement.

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Secondly, the manufacturing activity is not picking up at a pace that will substantially boost the usage of test equipment. R&D operations of Indian and MNCs which are working on cutting-edge technologies of the future.

Product development companies, on the other hand, have needs for testing their products faster and cheaper to ensure fast time-to-market with cost competitiveness.

Network deployment and service providers are driven by fast roll-outs and penetration, given the ever increasing subscriber base. Their requirement for test is marked by a company's ability to scale and train. Down-time and call-drops are a critical metrics for them where they need help.

 

Growth Drivers

The telecommunications market in India is marked by large Indian operations and MNCs alike. These companies are mainly involved in areas of R&D, product-development, network deployment and services (Operators). Each of these areas have distinct requirements of T&M, and Agilent is one company that serves them all. India has been a favorite destination for R&D by both MNCs and large Indian telecom companies due to the easy availability of engineering talent.

Some of the home-grown product development operations and MNC production units have made India a destination of choice for manufacturing/ product-development serving the local and third-world markets.

Large growth in subscriber base and recent roll-outs of 3G and BWA has made network deployment and services segment very significant.

The key growth-drivers for T&M in the Indian telecommunication industry in 2012-13 are:

„R&D Investments in existing and fast emerging wireless technologies like GSM, (E)GPRS, W-CDMA, HSPA, cdma2000®, 1xEV-DO, IS-95, AMPS, Bluetooth®, Bluetooth Enhanced Data Rate (EDR), ZigBeeTM, Wireless LAN (WLAN), 802.11a/b/g, 802.11n MIMO, WiMAXTM, and Mobile WiMAXTM, LTE & LTE-Advanced

„Large nascent market for handsets/ network equipment mainly driven by increasing subscriber base DSL, home internet, IPTV penetration

„Rollout of 3G and LTE services

These trends will boost the growth and requirement for telecom T&M significantly going forward too.

 

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