The technology life cycle is becoming short and increasingly complex- Mr. H S Bhaskar,Director of Sales, India Operations, Spirent Communications.

in an exclusive interview with ITVoice, Mr.H.S. Bhaskar, Director of Sales, India Operations, Spirent Communications,reveals her strategies for business in India.

ITVoice :- The range of solutions that Spirent offers to Indian mobile operators?

Mr.H.S.Bhaskar :- Spirent is a global leader in test and measurement, develops innovative hardware and software solutions and test methodologies which help shorten our customers’ product development cycle, improve the quality of their services, whilst reducing cost and risk , puts innovation to the test:

             High-speed Ethernet, such as 100GE, 400GE;

             Wireless infrastructure

             Cloud computing & virtualization, SDN/NFV

             Positioning/Timing

             Service Experience

             Smartphone &Mobile Devices

             Cyber Security/Application

In India, Spirent has wide range of products and solution for Indian SPs which provides solution for IP/MPLS, HSE (25/50/100/400G), Application & Security, 3G,4G, WiFi, WiFi Offload, Wireless technology, Mobile Handset Performance benchmarking, Service Experience, CEM, Satellite Communications, Mobile Backhaul for Synchronization, WAN Emulator, etc. Also providing Virtualized solutions for SDN and NFV technologies.

ITVoice :- The Indian T&M Market and opportunities it offers?

Mr.H.S.Bhaskar :- In India, the telecom network infrastructure comprising 3G, 4G, and latest VoLTE deployments that require end-to-end testing is creating greater opportunities for test solutions. We see significant growth in test & measurement requirement in emerging LTE/4G, LTE advanced technologies and 5G.

Today all the service providers are now moving towards the next generation of 4G network, there was the time for Indian operators when 96% of the revenue coming from the voice segment, now today the views for the subscribers has changed and data market growth is exceptional. With this new change, Operator has more challenges in terms of meeting the user requirement of high speed data and Mobile Internet. The Voice Quality and QOS requirement from the subscriber has increased, there was the time when subscriber wanted the cheapest plan, but now a day’s mind-set of the customer has changed and subscriber wants the quality of service in terms of better coverage, good voice quality, better data performance and best uptime.

Today, we at Spirent has solutions to meet the subscriber demands to test in the Lab environment, be is at Core network, IMS, RAN or Devices or even the user and service experience. Spirent has solution to re-create the field scenarios in the lab, hence will help the operator to meet the customer demands and save on the revenues. Meanwhile, Spirent also provides solution for live network and service experience.

Besides, T&M growth in 2016 looks very good from LTE, HSE, WiFi off Load and WiFi technologies perspectives. LTE technology is also driving HSE (40G/100G) and AppSec technology because eventually it’s going to be high volume Application Traffic at Access and Core network both.

ITVoice :- What are the latest trends in the T&M market and technologies that are key drivers?

Mr.H.S.Bhaskar :- The technology life cycle is becoming short and increasingly complex. With 4G in the deployment stage and newer service offerings by operators like : 4G, VoLTE & 5G, Small cell and R&D is creating opportunities for the T&M solution providers would further help drive R&D investments in India.

Once the Indian telecos start to roll out VoLTE, this would require a lot of testing in terms of data migration and security to the next generation of network which will enable high speed data usage.

Further, with a surge in smartphones and tablets, the terminal device test segment will continue to drive the T&M market. The increasing complexity of terminal devices and over-the-top applications would also drive the demand for wireless test equipment in R&D and manufacturing.

Apart from current technologies i.e. LTE, & HSE, for operators, there is a huge demand of high performance network and QoS, hence operator has to definitely look for the new technology adoption e.g. OpenFlow, SDN, NFV, Small Cell or be WIFI Offloading, 25/50G, Application & Security in LTE & IP core networks IP core networks, which will be driving next year T&M market. NFV will be the one of the major driver in 2016 and beyond since everyone including SP, NEM, Enterprise, Start-ups, etc. are working in that domain to virtualize every nodes in the operator network. Spirent has been working on virtualization technology for more than 3 years and now we are having virtualized testing solutions for all major technologies i.e. IP/MPLS, Application & Security, LTE etc. We also foresee the huge demand of Location based services; hence the adoption of these technologies will definitely provide the growth to the Indian Telecom Industry.

ITVoice :- What are your views on 4G/LTE and FTTH roll out in the Indian market?

Mr.H.S.Bhaskar :- Spirent plays major role in these technologies and work with Development & QA team in NEM, SP POC lab before and after roll out the services also. Since we emulate not only simulate realistic live traffic scenarios in lab hence it helps our esteemed customers to validate the individual device and end to end devices.

LTE is still an evolving technology and we have been working very closely with 3GPPP standards so that we can implement new technology on our solution for customer’s product development cycle.

We do provide end to end test solution, from core network, access network, to device performance/ Quality assurance to the RF performance testing of MIMO complexities, from service experience to security/application performance.

Spirent also has successfully tested FTTx end to end network for NEM, SP and Govt. Network also. Going forward, we see huge prosperity in FTTx & Small Cell market since SP is committed to deliver high throughput for Video and Internet traffic hence need to test the end to end QoS and QoE in FTTx Network. 

ITVoice :- How do you for see the demand and growth of T&M with respect to mobile manufacturing, carrier deployments and other verticals like defence & aerospace?

Mr.H.S.Bhaskar :- Mobile handsets, Aerospace and defense, R&D, semiconductors, broadcasting and automotive, constitute some of the key verticals that are contributing to the T&M sector growth. Assembly and end-to-end manufacturing of mobile phones and other terminal devices are augmenting the testing and automation requirements. With the advent of smart cities project and vast roll out of communications infrastructure by carriers continues, to ensure consistency in telecom-network standards, T&M companies will be playing a key role. Further, India being a key hub for electronic manufacturing services (EMS) will be creating further demand of T&M solutions and equipment providers.

Spirent as a T&M company sees good opportunities in coming years in SP, NEM and Defence market. Now defence (Army & Navy) also upgrading their legacy network with IP/MPLS technology and will be good opportunities from IP/MPLS and Application & Security testing perspectives.