(L-R) Ankit Goel, founder and chairman, and Radhey R Sharma, co-founder and director, Space World Group
Space World Group is a diversified conglomerate with a vision to empower the telecom sector by providing high-end passive digital infrastructure. In its latest venture, the group launched Constl – a unique fibre-based digital infrastructure platform. In an interview with tele.net, Ankit Goel, founder and chairman, and Radhey R Sharma, co-founder and director, Space World Group, talk about the group’s telecom offerings, the launch of Contsl, and future growth plans…
What are the Space World Group’s key focus areas? What are your telecom product offerings?
Ankit Goel
Space World Group is into various telecom products and solutions. Space World is a group name. Under Spaceworld, we have various entities to primarily serve the telecom sector. One of our businesses is focused on manufacturing sheet metal fabrication and infrastructure products for telcos and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Another business is Space Teleinfra, founded in April 2016. Within a span of five years, the company has become the largest neutral in-building solution (IBS) provider in the country with a 70 per cent market share. The reason for starting the company was 4G. We realised that the telecom industry is changing every three to five years, and we have to come up with new future-ready products and solutions. Under this business, we were able to wire up and provide connectivity in high-rise buildings, hotels, malls, and underground metros, across the length and breadth of the country. We wired up around 400 million sq. ft. of area. We sold this business to Brookfield in March 2022 with an enterprise value of around $150 million. In this journey, apart from getting a tangible value for the business, we ended up acquiring equity shares of Data Infrastructure Trust owned by British Columbia Investment, GIC and Brookfield. Following the deal, we have become the fourth shareholder in this business.
Besides, we are the only service provider in the fibre-to-the-x segment under the name of RANext Technologies. We wire up buildings, hotels, malls, and commercial complexes with neutral fibre inside the building to serve B2B customers. Our clients are mobile network operators (MNOs), and regional internet services providers (ISPs).
Our latest venture is Contsl, which we started less than a year ago. There has been a shift from voice to data in the last five to seven years and data growth is exploding. In our various businesses, we have learned that underlying assets, such as fibre, are very important to provide high-end data quality to end users. Under Constl, we are laying fibre across the entire country. The vision of the company is to provide the largest neutral independent point-to-point bandwidth with 100 per cent uptime. Within three to five years, our aspiration is that every single data byte should be transmitted through our infrastructure. Our clients in this business would be data centres, over-the-top (OTT) players, hyperscalers, ISPs and MNOs.
How has India’s digital infrastructure transformed in recent years? How will the launch of Constl contribute to this?
Ankit Goel
When 4G was launched in India, we started our business which yielded a good amount of fruit for us. Similarly, we have identified that the data centre market is growing. Data centres are directly proportional to fibre assets and bandwidth. Our aspiration now is to be the largest and the only company in the fibre-related business in the next few years.
Radhey Sharma
The real telecom journey started with 4G in 2016. We launched Space Teleinfra during the year, which is now Crest Digitel. In five years, we were able to build the largest neutral IBS company in the country. The wirelines segment is also expected to witness similar growth as wireless. Wireline is all about fibre. The backbone of connectivity in homes, hotels, and data centres is fibre. For example, when you click on your phone, the click goes to the nearest tower and then to the master switching centre of the telecom operator. It is further transferred to a data centre of the application, such as Google, Apple or Facebook. The entire communication is happening on fibre. With billions and trillions of clicks happening every day, fibre as the backbone becomes critical. However, there are high entry barriers as well as implementation and maintenance difficulties in this business.
Additionally, data centres were limited to coastal cities such as Mumbai and Chennai. But these facilities are now emerging in other regions such as Delhi and Greater Noida. These data centres need high-capacity bandwidth. Applications such as OTT also require base connectivity with fibre. These are the areas that we are targeting.
How will Constl cater to the telecom and data centre industry requirements?
Ankit Goel
India has an abundance of fibre which is more than 4 million km. This fibre has primarily been used to serve wireless customers of telcos. However, data centres need world-class assets to ensure minimum latency and maximum uptime. We have a vision of offering 100 per cent uptime, which no other company claims globally. Moreover, wireline infrastructure, which is fibre, will be required to support new-age technologies such as 5G and generative artificial intelligence (AI) as they cannot rely on wireless alone. We are not limiting ourselves to laying fibre only. We are also litting up the fibre to convert it to P2P bandwidth. So, our business is directly proportional to the growth of data and data centres. We are trying to build up our business in the same proportion as data centres. The way data centres are growing in the top seven or eight metro cities, we are also laying our fibre in the same cities. This will be followed by phase 2 in a couple of years, wherein we will enter Tier-2 cities such as Luckow, Jaipur etc.
Radhey Sharma
From a user perspective, while on a Zoom or Teams call if a user on either side of it is riding on a slow broadband connection, the user experience is highly affected. High-speed connectivity is needed for applications such as video calls and OTTs. High-quality fibre assets are required in the country to provide such connectivity. This is what we are building so that we are able to give smooth experience to not only our customers but end users as well.
How will your digital-infrastructure-as-a-service solution ‘KRYPTON’ transform telecom networks?
Ankit Goel
In this business, we are not limiting ourselves to fibre. We are converting fibre into active fibre. We are also not limiting ourselves to bandwidth. We are converting it into a software layer. This would be a one-of-a-kind solution that no other company or country has done before. It will enhance customer experience and provide them with a plug-and-play model.
Radhey Sharma
We are bringing the whole fibre ecosystem on a software-driven platform wherein our customers can see information on inventory levels, capacity availability and requirements, etc. just with a click of buttons. We are adding AI and machine learning features to enhance customer experience. Krypton is a pure application layer in this business.
What are your future growth strategies and expansion plans?
Ankit Goel
Laying down fibre organically will take three to five years as it is a hardware asset. Our aspiration is to acquire some assets which are regionally available in the country. So, we are undertaking both organic and inorganic methods. We are in the process of raising $300 million and we are already in the advanced stage of securing non-binding offers from various global infrastructure funds. These investments are driven by foreign investors’ attraction to India as a hub and the digital infrastructure segment in particular. We are raising funds to capture the market and become the largest and the only company in this business.
