Telecom: Lucent On the move

TELECOM
Lucent On the move

The top dog in fixed telephony equipment is banking on MTNL to repeat this success in wireless.

By Suveen K. Sinha

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Apart from Japan, India is the only Asian country for which Lucent Technologies-with its headquarters in Murray Hill, NJ-has a country-specific strategy. And it shows. Lucent Technologies was the only pure TELCO equipment vendor to figure among the top 10 of Voice & Data magazine's list of top 100 companies this year. It helped that six of the eight basic service providers in the country are Lucent's customers, with Bharti Telnet and Reliance Telecom being the only exceptions.

Early this year, the company completed installation of the one millionth line for the Department of Telecommunications. The company is estimated to have done business worth Rs 452.5 crore during 1999-2000, prompting President and CEO Vijay K. Gupta to say with a smile he just can't hide: ''Last year was very good.'' Very good it may have been, but the last year is now over. Points out rival Motorola's South Asia Executive Director for networking solutions Pramod Saxena: ''Everyone knows the world is going wireless, which consequently is the high growth area.'' And in the wireless world, Lucent has a limited presence, only having set up Escotel Mobile Communications' networks in Uttar Pradesh (West), Haryana, and Kerala. Thus, only 251,222 cellular subscribers were on the Lucent network at the end of October this year-against the total base of 2,783,820.

Gupta is quick to point out that this will change soon. Lucent's share of cellular subscribers will zoom once Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd starts its GSM service, for which Lucent is setting up the network in both Delhi and Mumbai. With an estimated value of Rs 12 crore, the project envisages 800,000 connections in each city, over three years.

''To say that the world is going wireless is only a half-truth. The other half is broadband,'' says Gupta. And Lucent is focusing sharply on mobile internet and broadband. It is building three broadband networks: Hughes' in Maharashtra, Shyam Telelink's in Rajasthan and Himachal Futuristic Communication Ltd's in Punjab.

But why is Lucent's equipment such a hit with basic telephony companies? As Bharti Enterprises CEO Sunil Mittal (a Siemens customer) says: ''There is very little to choose from among the top players.'' And Lucent's pricing is not aggressive.

But it is perceived to be at the bleeding edge, thanks to its Bell Labs connection, a fall-out of its AT&T ancestry. Indeed, the company's great white hope is its 5e switching system, rated by US Federal Communications Commission as the most reliable. Apart from being feature-rich, the system can be upgraded almost endlessly. Being scalable, it can support 200,000 lines on a single switch. ''Our networks easily last 20-25 years,'' says Gupta. Around the corner is the 7re, which provides a data-centric packet solution and will arrive in India next year.

Gupta sees unlimited opportunity in India as the New Telecom Policy of last year envisages 100 million telephone connections by 2010, against 25 million now. But a lot will depend on how Lucent manages the switch from wireline to wireless. There have been changes in its global set-up-Tata Telecom pulled out of Tata Lucent this year. As Gupta admits, Lucent was not very focused some time ago. Motorola, Siemens and Alcatel wouldn't mind a recurrence.

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