In a potential jolt to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's `Make in India' policy, Sweden's Ericsson may stop manufacturing media gateways (M-MGw), a key network gear, at its Jaipur plant, following the telecom department's refusal to issue suitable clearances even after the world's largest telecom gear maker has demonstrated that the concerned locally manufactured product is certified by leading international standards lab, Intertek Group Plc.
Finland-based Intertek has certified Ericsson's media gateways being manufactured in Jaipur as compliant to global safety standards, and has even exclusively listed the India-manufactured variant with an `I' suffix, (read: M-MGw-I) to distinguish it from the global generic name, M-MGw, two people with direct knowledge of the matter. But despite Intertek certification, the DoT's technical wing, the Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC), has not issued the interface approval certificate to Ericsson, they said.
Without TEC's certification, Ericsson cannot supply its locally manufactured media gateways to any private mobile carrier wanting to connect with either state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam or Mahanagar Telephone Nigam's telecom networks for point of interconnect links across India, which can translate in sizeable business losses for the Swedish gear maker. Matters have come to a head since such TEC certification has been pending for over a year. An Ericsson India spokesperson confirmed that the company is trying to resolve the issue with TEC, but declined to share details.
The DoT could not immediately be reached for comment. At present, Ericsson manufactures radio base stations, media gateways, core nodes and 3G and 4G broad band gear at its Jaipur telecom factory, primarily for the domestic market. The stakes are big for Ericsson, especially since introduction of IP-fication is expected to trigger an upsurge in demand for media gateways, which act as a bridge between different telecom transmission technologies and also enhance service to end-user connections, said one of the people cited above. Worldwide, mobile carriers have been rapidly turning to Internet Protocol (IP) based networks from the traditional time-division multiplex (TDM) variants, which has helped them boost network speeds and reduce load. The Swedish vendor is keen to resolve the M-MGw jinx with DoT as an original equipment maker (OEM) with a local production unit is better equipped to scale up for meeting immediate client requirements with lesser delivery times and, in turn, can help customers scale up networks for growth, said the second person cited. Failure to resolve this bureaucratic hurdle threatens to undermine Ericsson's future local manufacturing ambitions in India, said the first person cited above. So much so, it may be compelled to procure media gateways for the India market from any of its overseas units. Apart from India, Ericsson globally manufactures media gateways at its factories in Estonia, Sweden, China and Malaysia.
Possible suspension of media gateway production in India would be unfortunate since the Swedish networks vendor had recently announced plans to invest in a second manufacturing unit in Pune to cater to export markets across Southeast Asia and Africa, besides the domestic market, added the second person. Ericsson plans to start production at its upcoming Pune factory next year. It propses to initially roll out `minilinks', which, typically, optimise traffic aggregation and result in capacity savings for telecom carriers. India is the only country other than Sweden where Ericsson has more than one production unit. Ericsson was the first global telecom vendor to set up a manufacturing plant in India back in 1994.
source:economictimes.indiatimes
