UTStarcom has announced today that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), India’s largest broadband and telecom Services Company, has extended its contract to build the second phase of a countrywide multi-play network launched in December 2007. The company has deployed 1.3 million broadband subscriber lines
during the first phase of BSNL’s multi-play network deployment and continues to remain India’s leading provider of Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) and broadband infrastructure in terms of scope of deployments and total commercially-deployed subscriber lines.

During this second phase, the company will deploy its industry-leading iAN-8000 multiservice access node (MSAN) solution in 962 cities throughout India to enable the addition of 1.1 million new broadband subscriber lines. The network expansion will help BSNL accelerate its existing broadband connections on subscriber lines by more than 30 times the current speed.

UTStarcom will continue to serve as the turnkey provider for phase two of the deployment, maintaining full responsibility for the network design and planning, deployment, service roll out, and maintenance of the network. With the company’s ADSL 2+ based broadband solutions, BSNL will be able to extend its offerings of broadband-based, triple-play services such as video-on-demand (VOD), video multicast, VPN services and high-speed Internet services to another 1.1 million broadband subscribers across the country while simultaneously gaining the benefits of network flexibility, scalability for innovation and the opportunity for rapid return on investment. This deployment also is expected to help India move closer to its goal of 20 million broadband subscribers by 2010.

The new ADSL 2+ technology will provide speeds beyond 8 mega bits per second (mbps), which is more than 30 times faster than the existing speed. This will allow BSNL’s customers the opportunity to enjoy value added services such as IPTV, VOD, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), VPN service, multicasting over VPN and others over the existing broadband network, in addition to basic Internet surfing capabilities.
The company also has deployed its NetRing 10000 optical transport solution in support of this multi-play service for the aggregation of DSL traffic in BSNL's network.

Net4 to provide VeriSign’s SSL solutions

By NWC News Network

Net4 has recently announced its partnership with VeriSign to provide the company’s secure e-commerce solution in India. Under the terms of the agreement, Net4 will now provide customers across the country with all VeriSign Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) solutions, including standard and Extended Validation SSL Certificates.
These solutions will enable secure e-commerce, communications and interactions for Web sites, intranets and extranets.

“Whether businesses accept orders and credit card details online, give business partners access to an extranet or share information with employees on an intranet, they will need to protect these interactions with SSL encryption to protect confidential information and build trust,” said Desi Valli, Executive Director & COO, Net4. “The strength of the VeriSign brand, combined with our dominant market share and expertise in the web services space, will help to drive awareness of this need and increase sales of the company’s SSL solutions in India.”

The SSL solutions complement the company’s broad range of services, particularly its Web hosting, enterprise messaging, domain name and security services. With 14 offices throughout the country and STM8 connectivity to the Internet backbone, it services 600 corporate data centre customers, 2,500 business VoIP customers, 75,000 hosted Web sites, 1 million corporate email accounts and 2.5 lac registered domain names.

AIG Global realEstate invests in Velankani Tech Park

By NWC News Network

An affiliate of AIG Global Real Estate has announced an investment in Velankani Tech Park, a part of the Bangalore-based Velankani Group. Velankani is developing a notified Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Sriperumbudur, located approximately 50km from Chennai. The proposed development of 8.5 million sq. ft. is aimed to provide plug-and-play space for electronics hardware and telecom component manufacturers and IT/ITES companies. Velankani Tech Park is expected to house around 20-30 global component suppliers and will meet ready-to-move-in space requirements of vendors to telecom original equipment manufacturers & Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) giants looking to set-up operations in Sriperumbudur.

Kiron Shah, Director and Founding Member of Velankani Group, commented that the development is uniquely positioned and has a first mover advantage in the region. “The Velankani Tech Park is the only SEZ which will offer a plug & play facility in Sriperumbudur for companies and a seamless experience in commencing operations.

Substantial effort has already gone into the conceptualization of the project over the last two years leading to commencement of development at the project site. All basic infrastructure will be provided by Velankani to meet tenant requirements including future expansion.” He further added “AIG Global Real Estate brings tremendous experience in development of industrial parks worldwide and we are excited to partner with them. We will benefit from their global client relationships and hands on design and development expertise. This partnership is a starting point and we believe it will flourish and grow in the future.”

Rajesh Agarwal, Managing Director, AIG Global Real Estate India, stated, “We are excited to partner with the Velankani Group and invest in a project that caters to an unfulfilled demand in the region. We look forward to strengthening and expanding this relationship with Velankani. This investment is a statement of AIG Global Real Estate’s continued commitment to India and our investors, and we are looking forward to expanding its presence in India and building strong relationships with local partners and investing in attractive
opportunities in the region.”
Avista Advisory Group were advisors to the Velankani Group on this transaction.

Cognizant to develop CRM solution for Deutsch Telekom

By NWC News Network

Cognizant has recently announced its partnership with T-Systems the enterprise customer division of Deutsche Telekom to develop business-critical Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and enterprise business intelligence systems for Deutsche Telekom. The two companies will leverage their CRM and data warehousing and business intelligence strengths to plan, design and implement an integrated customer database for Deutsche Telekom and a new portal for sales partners.

“The systems will help drive the strategic and operational decisions at Deutsche Telekom, thereby enabling the company to optimize its business processes, enhance its customer and supplier relationships and experience, drive costs down and increase the value added services,” said Santosh Thomas, Vice President and Head of Continental European Operations at Cognizant. “Our complementary capabilities of deep industry expertise scale of operations, and market-leading global delivery platform provide the company a unique value proposition of local knowledge coupled global reach and expertise.”

The integrated customer database will make customer information available more quickly, thereby helping the call center employees of Telekom Shop to provide seamless customer service throughout Germany. The company’s sales partner portal which will replace the systems currently used at T-Home and T-Mobile will provide the group’s sales partners with a consolidated and unified system that will modernize the ordering process for retailers, call centers and alternative sales units. It will also enable them to provide their customers with more customized products and services resulting in enhanced user experience.

Symantec releasesits disaster recovery survey findings

By NWC News Network

Symantec has recently announced the India findings of its Disaster Recovery (DR) survey, a global research initiative which surveyed 1,000 executives worldwide. The findings have identified physical and virtual breaches as the key factors driving the enterprises across the country to re-assess their disaster recovery strategy.

The survey saw 74 % of the respondents claiming an increase in virus attacks prompted them to revisit their DR plan, 68 % are going in for a re-evaluation to avoid data loss incidents and 54 % to prevent accidental or malicious employee behavior. Furthermore, technological advancements such as virtualization and enterprise mobility have independently led 60 % to re-examine their DR strategy on an ongoing basis.
“Disaster Recovery planning is not limited to virus attacks or natural calamities but various supplementary factors that hinder seamless business operations. Enterprises should identify, classify and prioritize critical assets for disaster prevention, detection, response, recovery and mitigation,” said Anand Naik, director, Systems Engineering, Symantec.

Key findings of the survey suggest that 22 % of Indian enterprises conduct full scenario DR tests only once a year or less due to reasons such as lack of staff availability, disruption to employees, budgetary issues and disruption to customers. In addition, 32% admit DR testing could affect sales and revenue.
Only 26% of respondents report they could achieve baseline operations within one day. Another 23% reported it would take a full week to achieve 100% normal operations. The survey found that the most feared consequences of disasters include loss of company information, harm to their company’s brand and reputation, negative impact on overall customer loyalty, damage to employee productivity and competitive standing.

The studies also suggested that Virtualization is the major factor that is causing more than half (61%) of India respondents to reevaluate their DR plans and human error and insufficient infrastructure result in unsuccessful DR tests. Of the surveyed enterprises, 44% carried out full-scenario testing on a monthly basis. However, a significant percentage (22%) of tests failed to meet the average time required for recovery that is 12.81 hours. Respondents also reported the top reasons for failed tests as human error, technology failure, insufficient IT infrastructure, out-of-date plans and inappropriate processes.

Cast Iron offers SaaS integration

By Antone Gonsalves

Cast Iron on Thursday launched a hosted integration service for companies looking to connect applications from multiple software-as-a-service providers.
To set up the connection, Cast Iron has built a library of integration templates as a starting point. By selecting the template for Salesforce.com and for NetSuite, users can configure from 70% to 80% of the workflow and integration with the remainder requiring coding for customization.

Cast Iron has templates for 23 SaaS providers, and is looking to partner with more. Companies willing to work with Cast Iron can either refer customers to the integration vendor, resell the Cast Iron service or its in-house integration software, or license the integration technology and embed it in their own online services. Cast Iron Cloud starts at $1,000 a month.