Last year, the government had proposed to set up TFC in the 12th Five Year Plan period (2012-17). The Cabinet had approved the creation of TFC under the National Telecom Policy 2012 in the year 2013. However, it was cleared last year after amending and inserting rules on funding, legal and regulatory issues. A proposal for TFC was initially drawn out by the now defunct Planning Commission in 2013 based on the National Telecom Policy 2012 that had suggested constituting of TFC for easy funding of the telecom sector. Banks and other lending agencies have generally shied away from funding the debt ridden telecom sector in India especially after the 2G scam. According to government estimates, debt market in telecom sector during the 12th plan period would be around Rs 7.55 lakh crore and TFC will initially target 5% of this debt. (Source: Financial Express)

“ZyXEL is in the market for the last 25 years. The business has swelled to over a billion dollar globally. We have realized that there is much more that consumer expects from us. Earlier the RMA was centralized, and now we have decentralized it to 72 locations across the country. This will leverage a great customer satisfaction in India.”

Previously, ZyXEL had four regional support centres. “Since we are covering every state capital, it will obviously benefit the large consumer market in that state. In addition to that we have increased the number of hours and agents for our call center and redesigned the support center on our website,” said Mr Swayambhu. The changes brought about ZyXEL is based on the inputs from a 6 month long user survey by the company. The decision is taken considering the changing mindset regarding the service in organizations and the increasing importance it plays in supporting the business growth. F1 Info Solutions and Services, a 1neoteric Group company, is one of India’s largest pure-play neutral service providers offering post-sales support and allied services to millions of customers of leading ICT companies in India.

“With over 100 service centers covering 500 locations, F1 will strive to deliver on the stringent customer service parameters for ZyXEL products. We will closely work with ZyXEL to enhance the post-purchase experience and satisfaction of their customers in the remotest parts of the country,” said Shammi Moza, Director, F1 Info Solutions & Services.

F1 has a fleet of more than 700 employees in more than 100 service centers. It provides a bouquet of services across 500+ locations. F1’s range of services include warranty support, L4 repairs, RMA, spare parts management, installation & deployment, facility management and help desk.

ZyXEL Channel Sales head Sanket Kulkarni addresses, “This change is phenomenal. The entire contact centre for the customer is transformed. Telephone has changed, web is changed and physical contact is also changed significantly. Web is much more user friendly and graphical.”

Sanket also held that the turnaround time from lifting the product from the customer and delivering the replaced product will now get reduced substantially. The new method would be safer and faster for our customers. And this will cement our commitment.
“It gives confidence to channel partners especially System Integrators (SI) an Internet Service Providers (ISP) segment who always look for immediate service centre. The value of services has more significance given the increasing role of post purchase experiences affecting revenue. We are working on such mechanism where we give table replacement to partners in channel,” says Madhukar Swayambhu. Sanket informed, “Though price plays important role in defining product sales, but the end customer will not mind paying little extra money if they satisfactory service. And that’s our strength.” (Source: Convergence Plus Bureau)

While the front facing 5MP camera is equipped with a 4-element lens to help interpolate images in 8MP resolution as well. Booting Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, this Android One smartphone will get a priority for the next major Android updates. For connectivity, it offers Wi-Fi and dual-SIM support having one 3G enabled SIM card. The Pixel V1 packs a 2,650mAh battery and is expected to launch it at INR 11,349 ($177) on Monday. (Source:GSMAreana.com)

Starting prices have been sought for the 2G bands of 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, the 3G band of 2100 MHz and the 4G bands of 2300 MHz and 2500 MHz, apart from 700 MHz. Under new liberalised spectrum rules, all these bands can be used to offer any telecom services using any technology. Hence, 800 MHz and 1800 MHz can be also used for 4G, while 900 MHz can also be used to offer 3G services.

Some of the spectrum that will be auctioned stems from the expiry of permits in 2017. However, the government will also sell additional frequencies in all the bands, the official said. Reliance Communications' (RCOM) permit in Gujarat, where it holds 800 MHz and 1800 MHz airwaves, expires in March 2017. Three permits of Tata Teleservices BSE 0.13 % are up for renewal in September 2017. These are 800 MHz and 1800 MHz in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Additionally, state-run Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd's (MTNL) spectrum across 800 MHz, 900 MHz and 1800 MHz in the lucrative circles of Delhi and Mumbai will be due for renewal in October 2017. But it's unclear if the government will put MTNL's bandwidth up for sale or extend its licences at market price. "We will put up the airwaves which remained unsold in the last auctions as well as some more spectrum which we might get back from defence and the harmonisation process," the official said. Harmonisation refers to making spectrum in any band contiguous, thus increasing efficiency without added costs. The DoT had put a total of 470.75 MHz of spectrum up for auction in these bands in March. It was left with 15 MHz of unsold airwaves in the 2100 MHz band, 5.4 MHz in the 1800 MHz band, 9.8 MHz in the 900 MHz band and 22.5 MHz of bandwidth in the 800 MHz band.

In 2100 MHz, the DoT is planning to auction the entire 15 MHz of airwaves that's with the defence services, another official confirmed. "We have an in-principle agreement with them and are confident of selling these airwaves with the rest of the bandwidth," the person said. A senior Trai official confirmed to ET that it had received the telecom department's request and will soon begin consultations to arrive at starting prices.

"We have received a request for all these bands including 700 MHz," the official said. For the 700 MHz band, the telecom department has sought pricing of 30 MHz of airwaves across all 22 circles. The telecom industry has been seeking a timetable for the 700 MHz auction. "We are asking telecom department to provide us with a roadmap for 4G band prior to a decision on auction date as it will allow sufficient time for device ecosystem and network infrastructure to develop accordingly," said Sandeep Karanwal, India head of the GSMA lobby group.

The first DoT official said that even if the government is prepared to auction 700 MHz spectrum along with the rest of the bands, it will await the response of companies on whether they are prepared to buy the airwaves and whether the ecosystem for the band is ready. "We don't want to sell the bandwidth if they aren't ready to buy it yet," the official said, adding that since it was a very efficient bandwidth, it would attract the heftiest reserve price. Experts said any news of additional bandwidth will cheer the spectrum-starved industry, but pricing will be key to demand, especially with the telecom companies having a total debt of Rs3 lakh crore.

"The airwaves must be rationally priced to avoid hyper competition," said Prashant Singhal, global lead for telecom at EY. "Secondly, it will be better to hold auctions separately for different bands, say like in the 2010 auctions. That way operators can form a better strategy. Simultaneous auctions will not be the best for the industry right now."

Another senior industry executive said that the 700 MHz band will be highly prized, followed by 2100 MHz and 900 MHz for 3G. The DoT official said Trai's 2012 recommendations offer a pointer to 700 MHz band pricing. It had pegged this at two times the price of airwaves in the 900 MHz band. The latter more than doubled to nearly Rs7,500 crore a unit in March. The government earned an alltime high of Rs1.098 lakh crore from the sale of 418.5 MHz of airwaves in the March auctions as it sold airwaves across 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and the 2100 MHz bands. (Source: Economic Times)

This event is a demonstration of Matrix’s commitment to our partners across the globe, as well as an opportunity to recognize our top performing channel associates. The event was a time to take a break after a year-long hard work. Matrix partners enjoyed various outdoor games and activities at Daman. Growth Summit also provided a platform to partners to interact with their other partners and share their experience and ideas. The summit ended on a positive and energetic note where partners were all charged up to tackle the current business year and promised to meet again at the summit next year. (Source: Convergence Plus Bureau)

What are the key factors that have contributed to the success of the company?

We constantly innovate to optimize our solutions in proportion to the digital transformation. Our global presence with over 175,000 servers in 100 countries within over 1,300 networks is one of the key contributors to our success. It helps us deliver more Web traffic than anyone in the world ensuring secure, engaging user experiences to any device, anywhere. The end user experience and our partnerships and alliances also play a major role.

How do you differentiate your company from the other players operating in the same segment?

The telecommunications industry has witnessed a drastic growth in mobile Internet traffic. This growth has placed the mobile service providers in a position where they have to incur additional investments for new infrastructure. We are enabling mobile solutions that can handle this explosion, in a far more innovative manner, using existing networks. One such innovation is by extending our footprint on to the mobile device to alleviate the radio congestion challenges. This works seamlessly with the cloud based Akamai Intelligent Platform and can handle the data explosion, thereby helping service providers balance the situation.

How does the organization help telecos manage cost by providing effective video delivery and improved network monetization and optimization?

The solutions that are currently available provide different levels of network optimization to improve delivery over mobile and fixed networks. As consumers continue to adopt the connected lifestyle, with the help of our big data platform, we identify data patterns in the network, analyze them and leverage these insights to pre-position content in off-peak hours. This will facilitate the consumers to access the video or content even during peak hours simultaneously reducing the capital expenditure requirements for telcos. In addition, with our turnkey solutions, we can enable new revenue generation models around off peak data packages for videos and music.

How do you see the industry developing in the future? Upcoming trends?

Video is the critical trigger in the mobile ecosystem. In a joint study by Assocham-Deloitte, the share of videos in India’s Internet traffic data is expected to rise from about 41% in FY 2012 to 64% in FY 2017. In proportion to this adoption and the increase in mobile devices, the requirement of bandwidth is rising. We expect new models of delivery to become possible. Unlike the GB quota (which is not very intuitive to end users), we think the consumers will begin demanding quota on the basis of hour/day.

Available opportunities and roadblocks that impact this sector?

For this adoption, the economical model has to make sense. Existing infrastructure costs and price points will not support the growth of this sector. Monetizing the network efficiently, by using off peak hours (preferably middle of the night) could be the first big step. We can also support it by seamless integration with WiFi points.

Any key learnings/policies/ factors that have been successfully implemented in the international markets and can be replicated in India for further enhancement of the sector?

From what we have observed over the years, we think India is a unique market. The scale and price points are very different from other countries. In fact we have witnessed many instances when the models are developed in India and then replicated in the International market. Feedback from initial consumer pilots are very positive. Their expectation of high quality videos without rebuffering is very high, reinforcing our assumptions, and we have also witnessed an increase in video consumption by more than 44%.