Being a network infrastructure provider, CommScope Inc. has played an instrumental role in the creation of cable TV infrastructure, wireless networks and intelligent buildings across the world. The company has been serving customers in more than 100 countries across their wireless, enterprise and broadband markets. Navin Vohra, Vice President, Sales, APAC, CommScope talks about the company’s presence in the Indian telecom infrastructure market and their future plans...

How has been your experience in the Indian market? What are the key milestones achieved by the company?

The Indian market has changed considerably in the past decade. Two years ago, the telecom sector was subdued and mobile network operators were reducing their capital expenditure in line with lower profitability.

In contrast, today the telecom market is bullish in India. There is a positive attitude in the general business climate and amongst the customers as well. The new political leadership in India has had a positive impact and we are seeing a lot of enthusiasm for both our businesses – wireless and enterprise. With a stable government, the economy is starting to revive and we foresee economic growth for the years to come.

To CommScope, India is an important market. CommScope saw the opportunity and invested early into India in 1998, ahead of our competitors. Having a first mover advantage and by being close to our customers enabled us to play a dominant role during India’s telecom boom in the early 1990’s.

We recently achieved a significant milestone – manufacturing one million base station antennas at our Goa facility.

Goa is our second largest base station antenna manufacturing and distribution facility after China globally. The facility is spread over 25,800 square meters and meets international quality standards. With over 1,500 employees, the facility primarily manufactures antennas. More recently, we have also started manufacturing Systimax copper cabling, panels and patch panels at the facility.

How has the Indian telecom infrastructure space evolved over the years? What opportunities do you see going forward?

The Indian telecom industry has come a long way in the past twenty years. It has transitioned from 2G voice led services to 3G data enabled services and now to hi-speed access – the 4G LTE network.  India’s telecommunications industry stands to become one of the largest in the world and currently has over 900 million mobile subscribers.

With the growth in data use, there is a need for operators to not just improve coverage but also increase capacity in their networks. As we have in the past, we continue to work with our customers as they tackle the above challenges, supporting them with the necessary solutions and also sharing the knowledge we have built from working with countless operators globally.

What are the network challenges faced by the service providers in the Indian market? How does CommScope plan to address these?

Over the years, India has witnessed several technology migrations and CommScope has played a role in helping Indian operators through this technology evolution. About five years ago, operators got their licences and spectrum for 3G and we have been working with the operators on their 3G builds. While 3G is continuing to expand, we now also have the arrival of 4G-LTE. This means that on top of implementing new technologies for 4G, operators also have to take on the challenge of increasing their network capacity to handle the increased data usage.

In terms of implementing new technology, with 2G, 3G and LTE networks all in operation at the same time, operators often find that they need to support all the frequency bands for the 3 technologies in the same cell site. We help operators manage this with our multi-band antennas that can cover multiple technologies and multiple frequency bands.

There are many other innovative ways that we’re helping operators to cope with network modernisation. For example, we offer the world’s first pre-assembled tower-top in our SiteRise solution and also the SiteRise Standard Interface which allows operators to connect a remote radio unit to the base station antenna in a simplified plug-and-play arrangement.

The capacity challenge can also be handled with multi-beam antennas. These antennas allow operators to sculpt each sector such that there is minimum overlap between sectors and interference is minimised – an important factor in inference-sensitive LTE networks.

We also offer other solutions that address passive intermodulation (PIM) and also Class 4 microwave backhaul antennas with low side lobes that enable more efficient spectrum usage.

What are your views on government’s ‘Make in India’ campaign?

The ‘Make in India’ campaign is definitely a positive boost to the manufacturing sector and the country as well. We think this is a great initiative; it has brought about positive outlook in the country.

What are your growth plans for the Indian market in the next few years?

India is an important market for CommScope. Our wireless and enterprise businesses are growing and in both areas we are enhancing our position in the market. As mentioned earlier, our focus for the wireless customers is to support them to modernise their networks as they continue to transition from 2G to 3G to 4G and also help them make their networks more efficient.

There is a lot of opportunity in the Indian market and several trends are driving the need to solve capacity and bandwidth constraints. Another important trend we’re seeing in India is that the quality of service and network is becoming more important and people are willing to pay a premium to get that service, pushing for the greater need to solve capacity challenges.

Lastly, we see huge opportunity in-building wireless solutions. According to the CommScope 2013 Enterprise Survey Report, globally 60 per cent of calls either originate or terminate in the building. As 4G continues to roll out in India, we will see an increasing demand for in-building wireless solutions and CommScope will be there to help operators.