Nokia Siemens to make India 3G hub

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New Delhi, July 16

Telecom equipment manufacturer Nokia Siemens considers India to be one of its largest markets for third generation gear and plans to make it a global hub.

Base stations

The company, which already operates its global managed services division out of India, plans to manufacture 3G base stations at its plant in Chennai and bring in 3G-specific research and development projects to its facility in Bangalore.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Keith Sutton, Head of 3G Product Management for Nokia Siemens Networks, said, "India will be one of the largest 3G markets for us going forward and we will be investing here to leverage our existing strengths for our global markets. We have plans to manufacture 3G base stations at our Chennai plant. The R&D facility in Bangalore, which is already our largest R&D centre in the world, is working on projects specific to our global strategy for 3G."

Mr Sutton said equipment vendors are developing innovative business models to support Indian operators fund 3G services.

Licence cost

"Though this is not specific to Nokia Siemens, one of the options that vendors are looking to do is to fund the operator's cost for acquiring 3G licence. We ourselves are involved in discussions with operators to come up with new innovative models. Just like managed services as a concept was first developed in India, there could be business models that may be first deployed here which will later become global standards," Mr Sutton said.

On WiMax technology, Mr Sutton said the technology was good for fixed broadband than for mobile broadband (for which other technologies such as HSDPA plus are much advanced and have a better eco system).

Taken from Business Line

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