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Global telecom giant Nokia has zeroed in on two sites in India for its Global Network Operations Centre that will manage the networks of the mobile service providers internationally.
"We have zeroed in on two sites for our Global Network Operations Centre. We will soon announce the site," Nokia Executive Vice-President and General Manager Networks Simon Beresford-Wyile said.
Nokia is offering managed services to 34 clients of its 140 clients in 28 countries, and has provided operating services for over 20 operators globally, helping them with the day-to-day tasks of running their networks so they can focus on bolstering their business offerings.
The network operations centre will centralise the delivery of network management and operating services for Nokia, he said.
The centre will be operational in first half of 2006 and will employ 100 people to start with, Beresford-Wyile said, adding that it would be the only one of its kind in the world.
He said the company was talking to its clients in managed services business for delivering these services from India.
Services business comprises 25 per cent of the revenues of network business of Nokia and accounts for one-third of the employees.
The company had signed a $125 million deal last month with Bharti to expand its managed GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks in eight circles in western, central and eastern India.
Beresford-Wyile said Nokia is gradually moving from being a manufacturing to a services company.
"Business in services was beginning to mature. Going forward Nokia would be more a software and services company and revenues from services in networks business will grow to 50 per cent of the total in next three to five years," he said.
Nokia Networks Services Business Unit consists of systems integration, care learning solutions operations solutions, managed services and delivery services (in delivery operations).
It sees growth in the systems integration, consulting services, managed services and software for the automation and centralisation of network and service management.
Analysts say that managed services alone is a Euro 10 billion opportunity in 2006.
Beresford-Wyile said the mobile subscriber base would go up to 3 billion worldwide in 2010 from just under 2 billon at present.
Half of the growth between 2005-2010 will come from Asia-Pacific of which hundreds of millions will come from India, he added.
He said 22 third generation networks were being deployed in Asia-Pacific and the next phase the deployments would happen in markets like India, Indonesia and Philippines.