I had visited Indian Telecom 2009, exhibition held from 3rd Dec 2009 to 5th Dec 2009 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
I reached rather late at 1:30PM on 4th December 2009, from Rajiv Chowk ( previously Connaught Place) as the traffic was heavy. When I entered, I was surprised to find the registration counter almost empty! Any exhibition or trade fair that I had attended so far, I never experienced empty registration counter. I thought it must be the time as 1:30PM is normally lunch hour.
India Telecom Exhibition 2009
I got my visitor pass as well as one carry bag in less than one minute. It normally takes 10 to 15 minutes at busy hour. When I entered, to Hall No 18, I did not find many crowd which I experienced in my last India Telecom 2008 exhibition. So, I was kind of disappointed to find less crowd.
I quickly went to Hall No 14 too hoping I might see some crowd there. But no, there was also not many crowd. It was second day of the exhibition, that may be the reason that stalls did not have many visitors. I was interested to see if any PBX manufacturer from any foreign country is launching any new product. But I could find any. There are many Chinese Telecom companies though. I also saw Swedes Telecom company. But that was expected as they have launched mobile service in India with Unitech ( a real estate company) recently. But, I did not find any great rush at their stall.
After roaming around and taking few pictures, I came to Hall 18 and went to Indian PBX manufacturer Coral Telecom. I found, they have launched a new product called IRIS-NGX. It has GSM network compatibility. I found it interesting. It’s founder CEO, Mr. Rajesh Tuli informed that, this
Coral Telecom
equipment could be used to set up wireless communication in jungles in matter of hours as IRIS-NGX is capable of jeep-mounted. With having wireless experience for last many years, I was not much impressed though. But I think, it can have good application in flood affected areas as well as in hilly terrains where laying copper wires / fiber optics are difficult. Coral seems to be only Indian telecom brand now after exit of C-DOT, ITI from PABX development and manufacturing.
All other Indian PABX manufacturer like Accord, Matrix were there with smaller stalls. I could not find BPL Telecom and Syntel ( Telecom Division of Arvind Mills Ltd.) stalls.
There were many notable absentees. Reliance infocomm was one whom I could not locate. Also, if those empty stalls, empty walkways are any indication, than most probably, bottom line of Indian Telecom industry is shrinking !
UPDATE ( 7 Dec 2009 ) : I got an email from Mr. Rajesh Tuli. According to him, Coral got excellent response and Coral did very well, rather doing very well in 2009. But I believe, Coral must be doing well as I saw many visitors in their stall. They have occupied the place vacated by C-DOT in Indian Telecom space. I think, they are the only company in India now who is giving competition to MNC PBX manufacturer and winning too.
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