Preferred Partner
Expertise in all of the ‘in-demand’ technologies like 3G, 4G, and mobile broadband makes Ericsson quite sought after
India saw 3G in 2010 and 4G in 2011 and in both the cases Ericsson was the first choice by many telcos to get the trial done. Large players like Relaince and Qualcomm had done the LTE trials with Ericsson way back in 2010 and it’s because the Swedish telecom gear maker has been an expert in all the next-generation and future technologies like 3G, 4G, and LTE.
Though the company saw a dip in revenue from its Indian operations in the last fiscal compared to a year ago, it does not undermine the strength and potential of the Swedish firm. The company managed to get a good number of deals, but the size of the deals prevented it from showing a growth trajectory. Due to its association with all the Indian operators, Ericsson had big and small expansion projects in hand. Ericsson’s strong presence in the 2G circles helped it gain a significant foothold in 3G by becoming the partner of choice for leading operators like Bharti, Vodafone, Aircel, Idea, and others. Secondly, the dip in its revenue can be attributed to rupee depreciation to some extent.
Ericsson signed new deals with leading operators including Bharti, Aircel, SSTL (MTS), and Idea managing the networks in multi-vendor and multitechnology environment. Ericsson is providing services in 15 telecom circles for all types of wireless technologies deployed in Bharti airtel’s network. In India the company is responsible for more than one-third of the existing 3G rollouts and is also engaged with the leading service providers for rollout of 4G networks. It has successfully conducted field trials with Reliance and Qualcomm in December 2010 demonstrating high speed mobile broadband access in a mobile environment with LTE.
In the managed services market the company signed new deals with leading operators including Bharti, Aircel, SSTL (MTS), and Idea. Its foray into the TV F media market has also been successful. Ericsson supplied Tata Sky, an advanced TV on-demand system that enables its 8 mn satellite subscribers to enjoy the flexibility and enhanced choice of unlimited movies on-demand and catch-up TV through Ericsson’s Media Delivery Network (MDN). Ericsson is providing managed services for the operation and maintenance of the project.
Ericsson also provides business models and partnerships to broadcasters for developing their business and competitiveness. The offering is a combination of Ericsson’s managed services and technology leadership with strategic investments in play-out operations, capability and competence. The core components of its solution are typically services related to program play-out and quality control. Ericsson manages the day-to-day play-out operations, which allows broadcasters to devote attention to their customers, content acquisition, content rights and strategic planning. The offering ensures that the broadcasters are able to meet the increasing commercial and technological complexity and competition in the TV market.
Ericsson strengthened its OSS/BSS portfolio by acquiring Telcordia last year, and around 2,600 employees joined in. With this, Ericsson was able to manage a prominent combined market share of prepaid charging systems.
Offering solutions that span from fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) with VDSL2 for fast-time-to market and a maximized reuse of the existing copper network; fiberto-the-business (FTTBiz) for high margin revenue; fiber-to-the-building (FTTB) for capturing new market segments; to fiberto-the-home (FTTH) as the ultimate end goal, the company is in partnership with Radius Infratel for the deployment of FTTH in 600,000 households and businesses in India with it’s EDA 1,500 GPON providing internet speeds of 100 Mbps.
Ridding high on its RFD front, Ericsson invested close to SEO 33 bn in 2011 in research and development. The company is the largest holder of essential patents for wireless communication, with over 90 license agreements and 30,000 patents. Having 3 RFD centers in Gurgaon, Bengaluru, and Chennai, the company is doing RFD in several areas including revenue management, IP, and OSS.
Holding a strong portfolio of 30,000 patents in wireless infrastructure, Ericsson today has the most robust wireless intellectual portfolio.