At the recent “Telecom for Large Enterprises” conference organised by tele.net, IT and networking experts from various industry verticals discussed their telecom infrastructure needs, key telecom priorities and issues and concerns. Excerpts…
What are the key elements of your telecom infrastructure?
Akhil Chandra
General Manager, Telecommunications, Times Group
Our network has substantial reach and comprises around 70 advertisement booking sites, 20 major printing centres and an equal number of editorial centres.Content is paginated first and then sent to the nearest press. In total, we have more than 110 fully connected locations.The public sector operators, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, provide 80 per cent of our telecom infrastructure.We use lines of various speeds, from 2 Mbps to 20 Mbps. We also have radio connectivity at some places.
Jyoti Maharana
Systems Manager, Computer Centre, IIT Mumbai
We have approximately 20 km of fibre optic cables for computer networks, 32 Mbps of internet bandwidth, 10,000 nodes of which around 7,500 are being used, and 40 km of copper cables for telephones. We have plans to expand our optic fibre and copper cables infrastructure by around 20 per cent, and increase our internet bandwidth by three times.However, a few issues and concerns, such as spyware and network congestion owing to unwanted traffic, remain.
Dhiren Savla
Chief Information Officer, Kuoni Travels Group
We have 275 offices worldwide, which are all managed from India. The Indian offices are connected to a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network provided by Sify. We have a parallel MPLS network provided by Reliance Communications, which is primarily used to connect to a centralised internet server. For the international operations, we use an MPLS network sourced from British Telecom and an internet protocol virtual private network for offices located in the Commonwealth of Independent States.This network is provided by a local service provider and is connected to our data centre in Mumbai. We also have a backup data centre in London.
What new technologies or applications do you find the most promising?
Akhil Chandra
Metro Ethernet, Centrex, unified messaging and Wi-Max are the most promising technologies. While we have prioritised the deployment of these technologies, it is still unclear whether we will be able to do so considering the statutory requirements. We are bullish about unified communications as it integrates voice and data on one platform. Also, video conferencing is an important marketing tool and we plan to increase its use to 1520 centres, along with radio frequency identification devices (RFIDs).
Jyoti Maharana
Next year, we plan to expand our high performance computing network. We also plan to augment our distance learning course and are going to expand the voice over IP set-up in the campus. Further, there are plans to expand the wireless network to cover key areas on the campus.
Dhiren Savla
We are primarily looking at two technologies: RFID and mobile applications.We think that RFID will be a useful tool in tracking our BPO-related records and documents, as we hope it will increase operational efficiency and provide better control in the future. We are also looking to deploy mobile applications for our sales and collection agents and documentation staff. This will help us improve customer service.
What are the issues and challenges faced by your organisation with regard to the equipment and services provided?
Akhil Chandra
Our biggest concern is that since no operator provides a comprehensive suite of services, the extent of networking in our telecom set-up is often inadequate. Another concern is security; many applications like Wi-Fi entail several security issues.
Jyoti Maharana
The people who sell us the product are different from those who actually implement it. Also, the requirements that are specified in the preliminary discussions are not met by the actual network. The discussions undertaken during the deal are not passed on to the executing team. That is our biggest concern.
Dhiren Savla
First, the customers must be fully informed about the various products in the market so that they can choose the product that is best suited to their needs.Also, technology is changing at a very rapid pace and obsolescence is a major concern. One needs to be sure that the product being bought is future-proof and future-ready. Second, although the service providers dominating the market are doing a fantastic job, there is always scope for improvement. For instance, the service providers must keep abreast of the customers’ requirements. When service providers or their partners come to a client, they try to push a readily available product rather than providing a customised solution suited to the client’s needs. Thus, service providers need to work more like solution providers.
Are there any business areas in your company in which the use of telecom can be increased?
Akhil Chandra
We have been using telecom to its potential, but there are several areas in which more can be done. For example, Radio Mirchi is setting up a VSAT network and, as communication forms an integral part of our business, a fully converged network is the need of the hour.
Jyoti Maharana
We have an elaborate telecom set-up, but there is still a lot of potential. For instance, the necessary framework for in-house video conferencing and lectures is not in place. Also, Wi-Fi-enabled equipment is not being used to the fullest. Therefore, there is definitely scope to use more telecom facilities.
Dhiren Savla
We are in the service industry and telecom plays an important role in all our activities, ranging from customer acquisition and customer engagement to customer fulfilment and customer service. Therefore, telecom facilities such as voice telephony, the internet or even a call centre are useful. Also, a robust and flexible telecom infrastructure can help any enterprise train its employees.
What disaster recovery mechanisms are used in your organisation?
Akhil Chandra
We have implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions in our communications infrastructure, and therefore require stable disaster recovery mechanisms. There are disaster recovery sites at Hyderabad with stringent security policies in place. In addition, the process of improving our backbone to achieve 100 per cent reliability is going on. Disaster recovery might actually be needed once in seven years, but one has to plan for monthly disasters. The measures include establishing and maintaining power, having a stable back-up when the data centres have to be shut off, etc. Plans have to be in place for these eventualities too, rather than just, say, earthquakes.
Jyoti Maharana
We use the services of two vendors for internet bandwidth. This is necessary to avoid downtime. We use both terrestrial mediums and VSAT. The campus network is a closed one, it has a ring topology, but the ring is still not complete. It is flexible and we can immediately switch over if there is a breakage.
Dhiren Savla
At our data centre in Mumbai, we have a mirror site, which basically caters to outages but not a real disaster. We have another centre in London where data is replicated within 15 minutes. So, in case of a disaster, we would be able to at least function independently. But so far, such a situation has not arisen. We have had many successive outages, but the mirror site takes care of that. We also have a predefined disaster recovery team which steps in if there is a situation and decides how to migrate to the disaster recovery site.
What is your topmost telecom priority for the next 12 to 24 months?
Akhil Chandra
Communication plays a very important role both in terms of acquiring an edge over competition and creating a value chain. The Times Group’s biggest customers are the advertisers and readers, and it is important to create a seamless network between them and us, either through VPN or VSAT, internal local area network and wide area network (WAN), or through a wireless technology like RFID. Also, in order to set ourselves apart from other companies, we have to create a competitive advantage, which means that we have to ensure our sales force is mobile. For this, we are looking at unified communications. However, a few issues and concerns remain. For example, the cost of digital phones is high and we have already spent more than Rs 500 million for SAP and ERP applications.
Jyoti Maharana
Implementing state-of-the-art technology is a key priority. We are trying to enhance the role of telecom and have chalked out a probable road map. We plan to expand our existing network and WAN bandwidth by three times.
Dhiren Savla
Over the next year or so, we intend to deploy unified communications, which will enable us to go beyond data and voice networks, and also possibly use video services. We have operations in 42 countries across the world and, in order to curtail the cost of communications and travel and increase efficiency, it is very important to have a unified communications network.We also need to look at a managed network that is completely secure. The set-up provided by the service provider might not be managed very well. Therefore, we need to focus on managing, unifying and securing our network.
