Tackling same side goals

Chennai: They were used to lectures within the cosy confines of their classrooms. But when they attempted to get into business, the mentors and professors met their tormentors in the shape of telecom bureaucrats and commercial rivals, and learnt several valuable lessons in doing business in India.

Commercialising corDECT wireless in the local loop (WLL) was not a path of roses for the members of Telecommunications and Computer Networks Group (TeNet) of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M).

Shorn of protection, unlike Sam Pitroda’s Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), the TeNet group had to face the dirty tricks from the competition and the telecom bureaucracy.

Firstly, steps to get the wireless spectrum cleared by the army were deliberately delayed. Further, when foreign technologies were cleared after doing the various tests concurrently, corDECT systems were tested in a sequential order.

“Not only that, specifications for WLL were framed making it entirely different from our product,” recalls a soft-spoken Dr Timothy A Gonsalves, head, department of computer science and engineering, and TeNet founder member.

“Questions were raised whether the product was really Indian and investigations were started. Court cases were filed to prevent the telecom department from placing even a meagre order, claiming that our system was based an obsolete analogue wireless technology, when in fact it was a fully digital system,” says Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala, head, department of electrical engineering, and TeNet chief.

“At the same time offers to buy off the technology were also made as corDECT is still the only technology that offers simultaneous voice (telephone) and data (Internet) access in the WLL space. We just humoured IIT to begin with as we never believed that anything will come out of the effort. But once the product started working, we did not even know how to react,” Jhunjhunwala recalls the words of a telecom official.

For the corDECT licencees — Crompton Greaves, Shyam Telecom and Himachal Futuristic Communications (HFCL) — the turf was familiar and counter strategies were worked out. Jhunjhunwala was kept as the only public face for the corDECT effort, while lobbying was a joint effort. The group also enlisted the support of big scientists.

“We are professors and addressing or lecturing to people was not difficult. Secondly, no bureaucrat will refuse to meet an IIT professor. For them the options were two — either listen or not listen,” says Gonsalves.

TeNet group’s hopes of better days when the telecom sector was finally opened up got shattered as the private sector, wooed by vendor financing, opted for foreign technologies.

“corDect development certainly took longer than anticipated, both due to the challenges of assembling a competent team of engineers and the resistance from people in the Department of Telecommunications,” says Ray Stata, chairman, Analog Devices, which has invested in the venture.

Nevertheless, investors like Analog Devices took such setbacks in their stride as the normal business risk encountered by technology based start-ups. “At every point along the way we evaluated the wisdom of continuing but always concluded that despite the delays, we should plough ahead. This was based largely on the competence and determination of the team and their passion to win. So I would say we never regretted our decision to support the programme, particularly now that we are clearly achieving success, both inside and outside India.”

The need for national support Citing the US, Europe and South Korea as examples in lending national support for the development of telecom technologies, Jhunjhunwala demands similar action by the Indian government and the private sector.

“The US banned the entry of GSM (global system for mobile) cell phones for about eight years so that the code division multiple access (CDMA) developed by Qualcomm, USA, could mature,” he explains. Similarly South Korea banned the use of GSM in an effort to help LG, Hyundai and other Korean companies to become world leaders in CDMA terminals.

“We cannot hope to develop technologies and become the best in the world without long-term national support so that one can vie for the global market. The national standards defining bodies should define national standards to help local industry and research and development efforts,” says Jhunjhunwala.

Doing a SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats) of the Indian telecom sector, he says India can compete and develop cost-effective advanced products vis-à-vis the West in the domain of telecom access products (switches, routers, wireless, enterprise networking devices, application products and multimedia).