GITEX 2012 INTERVIEWS ITU TELECOM World 2012 - Teletimes

Keep Huawei, ZTE outof national optic fibre grid, says C-DoTIndian Centre forDevelopment of Telematics(C-DoT), the State-runresearch & developmentorganisation, has told theDepartment of Telecom (DoT)to keep out Chinese vendorsHuawei and ZTE from the Rs20,000-crore National OpticFibre Network (NOFN) project.“Chinese companies likeHuawei and ZTE are notallowed to compete fortenders in the US basedon security risk. Theirequipment is not being usedin most telecom networks ofadvanced countries like US,Canada, Europe and Australia.It may be worthwhile to lookinto options of isolating suchcompanies in NOFN roll-outtenders,” a letter from theC-DoT to the DoT Secretarystated. Though the Chinesecompanies have repeatedlyrefuted allegations of securityconcerns, many agencies haveraised this issue in differentcountries. Recently JohnSuffolk, Huawei’s Globalsecurity chief, told BusinessLine that the Chinese companywas open to any scrutiny todispel these concerns.In-house GPONThe C-DoT has added that ithas developed cutting-edgetechnology called Gigabitcapable Passive OpticalNetwork (GPON) which can beused for the optic fibre cableproject. “In order to avoid anyimplementation roadblocks,usage of C-DoT GPON systemsfor the optical fibre project isthe best option as suggestedby the high level committee.In this option price discoverymay not be an issue as already7-8 manufacturers are fullygeared up to manufactureand offer these systems tocompetitive bidding,” C-DoTsaid.GPON technology is usedfor broadband connectivityover optical fibre. C-DOT hasindigenously designed anddeveloped GPON technology,which can be used to providetriple play (voice, video anddata) through fibre-basednetworks.The present GPON standardsspecify 2.5 gbps (gigabit persecond) downstream and 1.25gbps upstream data capabilityto customer premise.Seeks policy changeC-DoT has sought changes inthe notified manufacturingpolicy to give preferentialaccess to indigenous products.It said that though thereservation for locally madeproducts is good, Indiancompanies should not beasked to match the price beingoffered on imported goods.Bharti Airtel becomes the fourthlargest mobile operator in the worldBharti Airtel a leadingtelecommunications service providerwith operations in 20 countries acrossSouth Asia and Africa moved up onenotch in the world wide ranking to bethe fourth largest mobile operator inthe world in terms of subscribers.Connections are aggregated as thesum of each group’s subsidiaries wherea minimum of 50 % plus one shareeconomic interest is held.At the end of the quarter ended June2012, the Company had over 250million mobile subscribers across itsoperations, representing 13% Y-o-Ygrowth. Bharti Airtel had becomethe fifth largestmobile operatorin the worldfollowing itsacquisition of ZainGroup’s mobileoperations across15 African nationsin June 2010.Distributed bythe African PressOrganization onbehalf of BhartiAirtel Limited.Zoe DaviesGetmappingopens Kenya officeAerial survey specialist Getmapping, in partnershipwith Survplans and Geomatica, hasopened a new office in Nairobi, Kenya, to increaseits presence in East Africa. The officewill support the activities of GAP (GeospatialAerial Partnership) - a joint venture betweenSouth African companies Geosense (part ofthe Getmapping Group) and Geomatica andwill operate in partnership with Survplans, aleading provider of ground survey servicesacross Kenya and East Africa. The Nairobi officewill support a full range of data capture,processing and analytical services. As wellas large scale LiDAR and aerial photography,the partnership specialises in corridormapping for power and civil engineeringprojects, together with asset survey servicesfor mining. It is planned to augment thesesurvey and post processing activities withdata hosting and web based GIS softwaresoon.56 November 2012www.teletimesinternational.com