10 YEARS OF VOICE&DATA;: Celebrating 10 Glorious Years

"We can have facts without thinking but we cannot have thinking without
facts."-John Dewy, US educator, pragmatist philosopher, and psychologist
(1859—1952)

The possession of information is often considered a critical part of
corporate competitiveness. But few realize that information itself is not so
valuable. What is valuable is the tools to aggregate the information, manipulate
it, synthesize it, so that it helps in decision making. At VOICE&DATA, we
have been doing exactly that. We have been instrumental in collecting
information, analyzing it and packaging it in a ready-to-use format for the
industry.

Actually we have been doing a little more than that. We have provided a
platform for the industry to voice its opinions and concerns. Often, we have
proactively organized discussion forums which has been instrumental in
developing an agenda on many issues.

VOICE&DATA was launched a month after the New Telecom Policy (NTP) was
announced in 1994. The timing couldn't have been better. The telecom sector
was getting liberalized and there was a lot of excitement in the industry. New
players were entering the scene and foreign companies were setting up office in
India. A nascent industry growing rapidly required organized information,
unfortunately there was none. VOICE&DATA was launched to fill this
information gap. The name was crucial to our positioning. While it was intended
to represent the convergence of voice and data networks, it also had another
interpretation. It was intended to become the voice of the industry and the
magazine took on the responsibility to provide data for the industry's
consumption.

The annual survey of VOICE&DATA has become legendary. It was the first
comprehensive survey of the industry and still continues to be so. The editorial
in the first issue in October 1995, speaks of the skepticism of people when the
survey was planned.

The demands of the survey was huge. The industry was growing very fast, but
it was also quite a fragmented industry. The survey had to be inclusive, it had
to be sized and different segments analysed, in short a daunting task. But the
team swam uncharted waters and emerged victorious. At the V&D100 2004 award
function Dr Shakeel Ahmad, minister of state for communications said, "The
annual issues of VOICE&DATA that track the annual achievements of the
telecom industry, are a great effort. It looks even more appreciable because
there is no other single source of information for this industry's growth and
achievements. I urge my friends at VOICE&DATA, to bring success stories to
light and share the learning with all so that we do not repeat the same mistakes
in trying to re-invent the wheel."

“Datacraft has been associated with VOICE&DATA since 1995. I find VOICE&DATA to be an absolute authority on the Indian telecom market. They have played a significant role in shaping its future. Heartiest congratulations to the Voice&Data team” Nagendra Venkaswamy president, India and  Sub-continent, Datacraft VOICE&DATA has been instrumental in giving the requisite awareness and supporting hand to the telecom and IT sector in india. TEMA is especially thankful to VOICE&DATA for being our partners for development of telecom manufacturing” NK Goyal, president, TEMA “One thing that separates VOICE&DATA from other telecom magazines is the quality of articles, which are well researched. The publication is also very upright in bringing out issues, which gives us valuable insights on serving our customers better” Sudipta Sen, MD, Comsat Max “I have been a voracious reader of VOICE&DATA over the last 10 years, and am always looking out for the latest issue” Manoj Chugh, president, EMC India & SAARC Region

Despite the sheer volume of the work, the survey was completed and the
results have come to be treasured as the most comprehensive account of the
Indian communications industry, a true collector's copy. In fact, the
responses amount to just that. "I have just read the special number of
V&D 100 and wish to compliment you on a wonderful compilation. This is most
certainly a collector's issue!" said a mail from Bala K Chandran, then a
GM, marketing and sales at Krone Communications and currently the CEO of Krone.

It is to the industry's credit that it participated wholeheartedly in the
survey making it a huge success. Although cellular or basic services came to be
much analysed sectors later, the V&D 100 still continues to be the only
complete account of all telecom service segments like VSAT and radio trunking.
It is still the only detailed survey about the telecom equipment industry.

VOICE&DATA has consistently played by the side of the industry and have
guided it through all its endeavors. Our V&D Goldbook is an attempt to help
vendors address their buyers to make informed buying decisions. This annual
issue has become an extremely popular initiative because it helped to bind the
communications community of both buyers and sellers into a closer bond.

“It is a very informative magazine with rich content, lots of market research, and trends. It is the only telecom magazine that put industry issues in perspective” CS Rao, CEO and president, Lucent “I think VOICE&DATA is one of the most credible sources of information on the telecom and BPO industries today”  Anshuman Magazine, MD, CB Richard Ellis (South Asia) “The magazine has been able to bring the latest in technology and has helped build a forum on issues”  Anil Nayyar, director-corporate, chairman's office, Bharti, Tele-Ventures “VOICE&DATA is a pioneer in providing indepth coverage on a wide spectrum of topics in telecom and the networking industry. V&D100 has gained acceptance as a benchmark of market performance” Sanjeev Nikore, COO, HCL Comnet VOICE&DATA has carved a niche for itself in the Indian telecommunication and networking space. I congratulate CyberMedia for the sustained effort and for being a part of the telecom revolution” Rakesh Bharti Mittal, MD, Bharti Teletech

Editorially, the magazine has been ahead of times. As early as June 1999, we
talked of the huge opportunity that call centers could offer India. The story
spoke about the huge advantage India has in terms of manpower. Those were the
days when GE was the first to set up its call centers followed by Deluxe.

There are two very significant contributions of the magazine that need to be
highlighted. The birth of COAI has its genesis during the first leadership
meeting of cellular service providers organized by VOICE&DATA in April 1996.
During this panel discussion, members mooted the idea of forming an industry
association.

Our special report on the discussion reported that "While there was no
second opinion about the need to have a forum that will raise the issues
concerning the industry, there was no consensus about its structure.... The two
models suggested were a body representing the entire telecom industry as a
member of a larger industry body like FICCI and an association of only cellular
service providers. It must be mentioned here that an association of eight metro
cellular operators does exist today....

Finally a formal recommendation was made to work towards forming an
association."

And the rest as they say is history. We are all aware of the crucial role
which COAI has played in shaping the face of the cellular industry in India.

The second significant issue raised by VOICE&DATA was the shortage of
bandwidth in the country. While the government focus had been on tele-density,
village telephony and quality of service, it did not focus on the availability
of bandwidth. This was the most critical component in the realization of the $50
billion IT dream without which the dream would have fallen flat on its face. If
India were to emerge as the services hub of the world, readily available
bandwidth was a basic necessity.

In view of this criticality, VOICE&DATA undertook a number of initiatives
to sensitize the government. The first initiative was to organize a panel
discussion to look at the issue thoroughly and find the direction for the next
step. That discussion proved to be historic in more ways than one. It was after
this discussion that Nasscom was sensitized to the criticality of this commodity
and Dewang Mehta coined "roti, kapda, makan and bandwidth" which
caught the nation's imagination.

Experts for the first time acknowledged the need to address that issue
collectively. The discussion concluded that the issue needed to be taken on a
war footing by involving industry bodies like Nasscom and FICCI.

Today bandwidth is taken for granted and is not an issue at all for the
industry, thanks to the initiative taken by the magazine as early as 2000. The
availability of bandwidth has since then not only facilitated the growth of the
industry, but was also instrumental in spawning the BPO industry.

Over the years the magazine has always espoused the cause of the industry.
Various discussion forums have been organized under the banner Top View which
has been instrumental in kick-starting healthy introspection in a number of
issues. Discussions on mobile applications, spectrum management, on OSS/BSS have
proved very beneficial to the industry.

Balaka Baruah Aggarwal