Radius Infratel has signed a new contract with Ericsson under which, Radius will connect 600,000 households and businesses. Rajnish Wahi, CEO of Radius Infratel speaks to The DQ Channels on the company's innovative offering, deployment benefits and challenges
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Please give a brief introduction about Neutral Access Network Operation.
Radius Infratel holds an innovative proprietary technological solution-Neutral Access Network Operation (NANO), which is designed to seamlessly deliver all IP-enabled next generation services at the last mile. This technology is operator-agnostic, and is being deployed, owned, operated and maintained by the company, which is an IP1 license holder and fully integrated teleÂcommuniÂcation infrasÂtructure solution provider in the wireline domain. The NANO network which offers future-ready approach takes 'open access' to the next level by integrating not only Information, Communication and Technology services (ICT) but also all Building Management Services (BMS). The company offers operator neutral technology for converged wireline and wireless services that facilitates entertainment and security solutions.
Radius provides solution consultancy and design, installation and managed solutions for realtors and service providers, and operation and subsequent maintenance and upkeep of the installed technology platform.
How innovative is your offering, as well as good in quality?
NANO is unique and has the capability to deliver multiple services (voice, video and date) of multiple operators, all through a single fiber connected at home/office. The ability to integrate all of the above plus also the various other services offered by a real estate developer into one network makes NANO a unique proposition, relevant simultaneously for consumers, telecom companies, real estate developers and also other VAS players. The high quality of service of this system is ensured by the exceptionally high quality of equipment procured from Ericsson and equally dependable operation and maintenance skill from Radius. This has been displayed recently in running similar system in CWG Village.
What are the key challenges in the deployment?
The primary challenges of this deployment are the laying of both passive and active infrastructure with utmost accuracy and quality, configuration of end equipment keeping in mind the exact requirement of the customer and finally making total integration of all the services as per the requirement of the end users.
What are the benefits that an end-consumer can derive from this offering?
There are numerous advantages of this 'future-ready' solution. The primary benefits include; 'smart home' at low cost, freedom for users to choose multiple service providers, maximum choice for consumer across content areas, eco-friendly environment, future-proof convergence solution and no clutter of wiring for all BMS, telecom and IT services. Besides, uninterrupted last mile network with QoS is assured with a bandwidth scalable up to 1GB.
How can your services enhance ARPU and savings in capex and opex?
ARPU will be enhanced automatically as more and more bandwidth hungry applications like localised value added services, Community networking and High Definition Video are delivered through the same infrastructure. eg inclusion of IPTV- SD/HD (Standard Definition/High-Definition), VoD (Video on Demand), MoD (Music on Demand), GoD (Games on Demand) etc. Provision of multiple TV systems in the same MDU will further enhance the ARPU. The service providers will save huge amount of Capex as they don't have to spend for the complete infrastructure but pay for customers per a 'Pay-as-you-use' mechaÂnism. The opex is also reduced to a great extent as very little manpower is needed to deliver their services and the last miles woes are taken care of through assured Quality of service.
What is your vision for 2020?
To enable, empower and entrust every citizen to the digital equality by establishing converÂgence network of telecom, IT and media through NANO to encourage education, enterÂtainment, employment and e-governance (By 2020 every new MDU project will be deploying only FTTH telecom infrastructure). Moreover, majority of existing housing projects having conventional copper infrastructure will attempt to convert into FTTH as it is happeÂning in Dwarka.
What are your current and upcoming projects?
Presently, our deployment target is projected to cover 600,000 homes by 2013. We will not be able to divulge project specific details as of now but of course our focus is on clusters like Dwarka where work is in progress and we are enabling 40, 000 homes in a phased manner.
Please give some insight on CWG- 2010 deployment.
CWG Village deployment was a very unique one, where IPTV was deployed in about 1200 locations. The regular IPTV feed from Airtel was blended with direct feed by MTNL in High Definition from nearly 30 games venues so that the athletes and delegates could view the happenings at each venue while staying at the games village. Further, each flat was also provided with intercom facility through our GPON. More than 75 country offices within the CWGV were provided with desired number of VoIP phones from MTNL, direct wireline broadband from Airtel of which few dedicated connections with symmetrical speed of 20mbps and Wi-Fi through the connected routers. At the CWGV, Radius also put together a secure wi-fi network in certain hot spots in the village, which was used extensively by the athletes and delegates to transmit about 2.5 terabytes of data