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Adith Charlie

Geneva, Oct. 7

Telecommunications equipment maker Vihaan Networks (VNL) plans to venture into Africa, South-East Asia and Brazil within the next three months.

“We are looking at entering those markets which receive a lot of sunlight but have issues surrounding availability of power,” Mr Rajiv Mehrotra, Chairman, Founder and CEO of VNL, said on the sidelines of the ITU Telecom World.

VNL, which produces solar powered base stations that bring mobile telephony to remote villages in India, is already in negotiations with three major Africa-based telecom companies for deploying its solution. Due to power outages, 70 per cent of an operator’s cost in Africa relates to many mobile phone base stations being powered by diesel engines, statistics suggest.

Based on the WorldGSM technology, VNL’s solutions have been inspired by the Scandinavian retailer Ikea: The entire base station comes delivered in six boxes. The base station costs less than $15,000 and can be installed by anybody in six hours, said Mr Mehrotra.

“We believe that our solution is ideal for mobile operators who are serious about venturing into those areas where the average revenue per user is less $3. Our aim is to have operations in three continents before the end of the current financial year,” he added.

In India, VNL has already tied up with two telecom service providers and its solutions have been deployed in more than 50 villages. It is in advanced negotiations with two more operators in India, the company said, without divulging further details. The base station is scalable and a single unit can support between 100 and 50,000 subscribers, said Mr Mehrotra.

The infrastructure can also be shared by multiple telecom operators, a practice that is increasingly becoming a trend in India and several emerging markets.

During rains the base station would work at an efficiency level of 40 per cent while it dips to 22 per cent if there is fog.

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