Our base stations are all-outdoor units that can be installed on the tower or a traffic light or any pole. All these factors decrease the expenditures in installation and operations, making the network deployment a viable business for operators.

What are the challenges that you face in India?

All the government policies are designed to help and aid software services companies, while product making companies are completely neglected. For example, STPI does not recognize embedded software as software.

The duties on importing hardware is very high. It increases the initial cost of development making it even more difficult for product focused startups.

The Indian investors and Indian banks are not geared to tackle or deal with technology product making companies. They are still old school and not ready to invest in long cycles of development which most technology companies require.

Indian customs is a real pain - they are not geared to deal with new businesses and they constantly create problems to stop the shipments from arriving.

There is no ecosystem to foster innovation – like test labs or leasing equipment, etc, that would make product development easier. The initial costs are too high for startups to make products.

Image: Sloka employees at work. | Photograph, courtesy: Sloka Telecom

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