Vodafone has announced its plans to foray into the fixed-line telephone market in the country. The landline services, however, will be aimed at the enterprise segment, which requires high bandwidth connectivity. The operator will be rolling out the wireline services via its enterprise arm, Vodafone Business Services (VBS).
According to VBS Director Naveen Chopra, Vodafone is banking on the government projects for the success of its its new venture. With regards to the revenue concerns, the Vodafone official said the company aims to generate 20 percent of its enterprise service revenues through wireline services by 2015, and plans to offer services such as corporate emails, video conferencing, security and other such services that require a massive amount of bandwidth.
“We have been doing this since the past three years and now we feel that customers are willing to pay for services rather than the (broadband) pipe,” says Chopra.
According to industry analysts, Vodafone will be leveraging the customer database of Cable and Wireless’, which it acquired for $1.7 billion last year. It is also believed that the ongoing tussle over spectrum refarming as well as growing requirements for larger bandwidth from corporates have prompted Vodafone to join the wireline industry
“Competitors have bigger footprint than Vodafone – whether globally connected undersea cables or strong existing customer base,” a telecom analyst is quoted as saying.
Apart the state-run telecom operators BSNL and MTNL, telecom operators Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Tata Communications are into the wireline market. With arrival of Vodafone, the competition is set to heat up in the near future.
Source: The Hindu Businessline