Nortel eyes India for network-managed biz

MUMBAI: Telecom equipment maker Nortel is focusing on making India its Asian hub for network-managed services. To begin with, the Canada-based vendor has enhanced the capability of its Network Operations Centre (NOC) in New Delhi to make it the Asian NOC for supporting customers in the continent.

To cash in on the increase in IP (Internet protocol) telephony traffic, specially by BPOs and ITeS providers, Nortel is also looking at rolling out proactive voice quality management, which ensures better quality of IP telephony deployments.

The NOC was initially set up to host contact centre services for subscribers of Bharti’s Airtel GSM mobile, broadband and fixed-line services. “Now we have enhanced the skills, tools and services and integrated the NOC as the centre to support all Asian customers,” Srinivasan Thukkaram, director (services & sales), Nortel India, told ET.

“The Indian NOC is central to our growth plans for our services business, which we are attacking very aggressively. We are ramping up the NOC here as India is pivotal to our global strategy,” said John Cooke, head of Nortel’s services business for the EMEA region.

Managed network services relieve customers of network concerns by ensuring the right hardware, software and configurations for maximising interaction of networks and components from vendors, integrators and services.

By managing this for customers, companies like Nortel help customers focus resources on managing their core business, rather than networks. In Asia, Nortel has already signed up over a dozen major clients, who will be serviced through the NOC in India.

Most firms are moving from circuit switched networks to IP-enabled telephony, where the quality of voice is a major concern. Nortel will focus on customers in the BPO and IT-enabled services space where voice quality is crucial to business. “Going forward, we will work with high-end customers in the enterprise and manufacturing services sectors,” added Mr Cooke.

rashmi.pratap@timesgroup.com