UTStarcom thrives in India

UTStarcom is the natural choice when it comes to IPTV deployment. The California-based company is considered to be the leader in the broadband infrastructure space and in a short span of time has established itself as a pioneer in the IPTV space in India.

Economic growth achieved by India in the last five years is one of the fastest vis-à-vis other countries in the APAC region, including China. The growth has done many good things to the country. First, it has influenced the policy-makers to make the economic and industry policy more flexible. Secondly, it has brought immense confidence to the technology vendors to invest in the country. And, finally, the citizen-centric sectors including manufacturing, government, telecommunications, PSUs, retail, education, hospitality, healthcare, etc. have invested in technology. They have, in fact, leapfrogged technology to enable themselves and provide best of the products and services to the people. Those technology vendors who have identified the sentiment of the country and brought in world-class technology include Cisco, Microsoft, Juniper, Trend Micro, IBM, Nokia, Motorola, UTStarcom, SAP, etc. The list certainly goes on.

Indian has not matured in tele-penetration or broadband penetration compared to the neighbours like China, Japan and Korea, but talk about IPTV, IP Telephony, Video on Demand, telemedicine, etc. has already started. Most of the telecom service providers have already forayed into this space partnering with the leading MNC vendors like UTStarcom, Cisco, Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, Siemens, etc.

Among these vendors who have helped us to taste the gen-next applications, UTStarcom has emerged to be the most aggressive and leading one. Fairly young vis-à-vis other technology companies, which came to India only in the first half of 2001, UTStarcom has sent a strong message to the competition with its tie-ups with MTNL, BSNL, Bharti-Airtel, etc. for broadband and IPTV.

The California-based company, UTStarcom, is the leading IPTV vendor in India. UTStarcom Inc. is a global provider of telecommunications solutions to the largest and fastest-growing telecom service providers. The company’s product portfolio includes wireless and wireline access network, broadband, IP-switching, transmission and 3G solutions. UTStarcom established itself at the forefront of the global telecommunications industry as a technology innovator that was first to market with several IP-based, industry-altering technologies iPAS, IP DSLAM, GEPON, IP CDMA and IPTV. UTStarcom has ISO 9001 certified R&D facilities in New Jersey, Chicago, California and Vancouver (North America), regional R&D centres in Asia, including two in India, ISO 9002 certified manufacturing facilities in North America and Asia and sales offices throughout the world.

The company started its operations in Gurgaon as the South Asia liaison office and very soon converted it into a branch office. Vijay Yadav, Managing Director, South Asia, UTStarcom, Inc., says, “With a view to making India multi-play broadband enabled, UTStarcom is committed to providing an end-to-end infrastructure for enabling broadband services. After all, broadband connectivity is vital for ‘triple play’ to come in. In fact, UTStarcom was recently recognized by INFOCOM CMAI for successfully integrating its infrastructure with telecom service providers to enable multi-play broadband (a.k.a. Triple-Play broadband) in India.”

“UTStarcom has also played a pioneering role in introducing to Indian viewers the power of interactive tele-viewing through IPTV, and also developing never-before, innovative applications for various telecom service providers to enhance user choices and experience. Apart from product leadership, our expertise and experience gained over the last two years in deploying these IPTV networks is a big asset that our customers can bank and rely upon when planning to deploy Triple Play Service,” adds Vijay Yadav.

Actually, UTStarcom came into limelight after it bagged the three years’ contract from MTNL deploy its RollingStream solution along with collaboration with Aksh Optifibre Ltd. Then, in the second quarter of 2007, the vendor won a contract to supply its industry-leading RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution to Bharti Airtel. The solution enabled the service provider to offer a completely new service to its customers consisting of live broadcast television, time-shifted TV and video-on-demand (VoD) bundled with the operator’s existing broadband and voice services, which could all be consolidated into a single bill and sent to customers at the end of each month.

Before that, the company had also pulled in an order with BSNL to lay out 1.3 million lines of UTStarcom’s industry-leading iAN-8000 multiservice access node (MSAN) solution in approximately 900 cities throughout India. UTStarcom's ADSL 2+-based broadband solutions enabled BSNL to offer new broadband-based, triple-play services such as video-on-demand (VoD), video multicast, VPN services, and high-speed Internet services across the country while providing the operator with network flexibility, scalability for innovation and a rapid return on investment.

Vijay says, “UTStarcom has become a complete solution provider to the telecommunications service providers in the country through the introduction of its major product lines – its AN2000 broadband multi-service access platform, its EPON broadband FTTP access solution, its comprehensive MovingMedia portfolio of wireless solutions [CDMA2000, TD-CDMA, W-CDMA], mVision its end-to-end interactive IPTV solution, its mSwitch softswitch solution and NetRing its optical transport solutions.”

Since its entry, UTStarcom has been focussed on Service Provider business and offers unique and innovative IP-based end-to-end networking solutions. Vijay says, “We are focussed on three core products, namely, Broadband, IPTV and NGN. Our differentiation lies in technology leadership and innovation and also the fact that we are focussed on IP-based networking solutions rather than having to protect legacy products or solutions.” “Our positioning in IPTV is quite unique, as we provide end-to-end single-window solution, but at the same time are open enough to interoperate with third-party encoders and DRM. We are uniquely positioned to offer complete Triple Play solutions to Service Providers,” he adds.
Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Alameda, California, UTStarcom is a global leader in IP-based, end-to-end networking solutions and international service and support. The company sells its broadband, wireless and handset solutions to operators in both emerging and established telecommunications markets around the world. UTStarcom enables its customers to rapidly deploy revenue-generating access services using their existing infrastructure, while providing a migration path to cost-efficient, end-to-end IP networks. The company has research and development operations in the United States, Canada, China, Korea and India.

UTStarcom is very clear in its goal and investing in the areas like Broadband, IPTV, and NGN. Of the three, the company has already established leadership position in two, i.e. IPTV and Broadband (DSLAM and MSAN, and Fibre-based ePON), and hopefully should achieve similar success in NGN.
“UTStarcom is a clear leader in Broadband and IPTV in India and we do not see strong competition in this region. Our RollingStream IPTV platform is deployed with Aksh MTNL in Delhi and Mumbai, with Aksh BSNL in 20 cities, with Airtel in Delhi-NCR and Sri Lanka Telecom,” he adds.

Five reasons to partner with UTStarcom:
• It gives immediate access to an industry proven leading-edge portfolio of products
• It gives accessibility to a great training programme
• It has the comprehensive marketing programme tools
• Secure access to the UTStarcom Channel Partner Programme Portal
• Assurance of highest level of support

In broadband, UTStarcom has already made VDSL and GEPON available. We are evaluating 10G. RPR (Resilient Packet Ring) transport system for protection on fibre for long-distance transmission is another technology which is very relevant to the country, and is extensively being used by BSNL. RPR gives less than 50 milliseconds of failover switching time, which is very crucial for any form of video traffic. “We are also working on a new platform called PTN (Packet Transport Network) which offers the best of both worlds in terms of transmission it offers the best of IPMPLS and STM. This platform will merge these two and provide a new way of building networks,” says Vijay Yadav.

In IPTV RollingStream IPTV system enables delivery of broadcast quality TV and Video on Demand (VOD) services over an IP network along with a plethora of value-added applications such as high-definition TV (HDTV), time-shift TV, video calling and conferencing, distance learning, IP Surveillance and more. Service providers of all types use the RollingStream system to custom design applications to help differentiate their customer services and increase ARPU.

Channel Engagement
Traditionally, UTStarcom directly works with the telecom companies. “However, we realise the importance of channel partners and are capitalising on these growth opportunities by building the appropriate alliances with companies that sell leading- edge technologies which can help their business grow,” says Vijay Yadav. “Accordingly, we have created UTStarcom Channel Partner Programme to help key partners differentiate their business, maximise growth and increase their profitability,” adds Vijay Yadav.

The UTStarcom Channel Partner Programme gives its partners the unique opportunity to sell and position leading-edge IP-based solutions which are being deployed in the largest and faster growing markets in the world. Today, UTStarcom products are helping to address the telecommunications needs of service providers and carriers around the globe. UTStarcom has designed this programme because we understand the needs as well as what services or products telecommunication customers are demanding to fit today’s ever-changing needs.

As a propagator of IPTV technology in India, UTStarcom also takes all the opportunities and platforms to propagate about this very technology. The company is seriously working on building an ecosystem of investors, partners, VAS providers, operators, SIs and developers to bring in this revolution of making the TV more interactive and personalized. Vijay expects that the revolution in TV media can only help bridge the digital divide because TV penetration is ten times more than PC in terms of homes, and many times more in terms of viewership. He adds, “Once we bring power of interactivity to TV, the power will shift from keyboard (PC) to button (on TV remote).”

In IPTV, UTStarcom is a clear leader and the RollingStream technology has the following key advantages and differentiators:
• Efficient Content Delivery: Powered by UTStarcom’s Broadband Media Distribution Protocol (BMDP), RollingStream intelligently caches programme segments on network edge servers based on viewing demand patterns and operator-specified policies. The intelligent content delivery mechanism enables Service Providers to store beginning programme segments for feature-length programmes directly on the network edge (closest to the subscriber) and dynamically deliver the remaining segments once viewing starts. Resulting benefits are simplified and expedited content delivery, reduced storage requirements, and minimized network congestion.
• Distributed Architecture: The RollingStream solution supports a dual type hierarchical distributed architecture in which Media Station servers are classified by their physical network location and their subscriber coverage. The dual hierarchical architecture enables service providers to dynamically distribute video content according to pre-defined distribution policies based on attributes such as content classification, subscriber viewing demand, and bandwidth availability.
• Cost-Effective Scalability: With a distributed architecture and a cluster-based server design, RollingStream supports over 20,000 subscribers and delivers 100,000+ hours of media content per hardware cabinet. Yet, the basic system’s price of entry remains low because modules are designed with industry standard, off-the-shelf hardware components. The highly scalable architecture combined with the low entry price allows operators to economically increase system capacity and attend to higher unicast traffic needs.
In order to put all the plans in place, the company is also strengthening its HR. The company has over 250 people spread across three regional offices and multiple site offices across the country, and is expected to grow in line with its business growth, which till now has been faster than the industry average.

Finally…
With a business goal of bridging the digital divide by bringing interactivity, control, and choice to the TV and TV homes in the country, the company intends to help its customers to launch more and more of Triple Play Services (High Speed Data, VoIP, and IPTV) on DSLAM or Fibre-based networks. And, at the same time, the company wishes to sustain its leadership in BB and IPTV and establish a strong foothold for our NGN products.