|
Broadband Access
Pirelli Plugs ‘End-to-End Solutions’
Cost Savings Are the Key Differentiator, Says CEO
by Iain Morris
“Our strategy is to offer end-to-end solutions to the telecom
operator,” says Mauro Sacchetto, CEO of Pirelli Broadband
Solutions. “We have made a decision to follow the telcos and
help them support IPTV through DWDM.”
It’s a strategy that seems to be reaping dividends for the
young vendor. Launched in 2005, its nascent photonics
division has already generated revenue of €20 million, and
Sacchetto is forecasting twice that amount in 2007, while the
rest of the business accrued an impressive €150 million in 2006 –
a sum that he expects to grow by 25 percent next year.
Pirelli’s buoyant CEO makes it sound simple enough, but he
has clearly invested a considerable amount of energy in
ensuring that operators take his strategic message away from
this week’s Broadband World Forum in Paris. Two product
launches have been timed to coincide with the Forum –
regarding a new dual-mode GSM/WiFi handset and the Light
Wavelength Division Multiplexing (LWDM) platform – and
Pirelli is also showcasing its MPEG-4 set-top boxes during the
event.
The handset has already been selected by French LLU player
Iliad for use with its new FMC offer ‘Nomad Telephony’.
Sacchetto holds up very commonsensical logic to illustrate the
appeal of the service.
“Today, 55 percent of phones used in homes are mobile simply
because they contain contact details – it’s easier than
dialling,” he says. In other words, the convenience of the
mobile at cheaper-than-mobile rates is the selling point.
Or so the argument goes. BT Fusion – an FMC service
launched by the UK incumbent – has not performed according
to plan, having garnered just 30,000 subscribers by May,
some nine months after launch. Analysts have since pounced
on the concept and given it a beating, and Orange underwent
a similarly bruising experience when it launched Unik in
France last month.
However, ‘Nomad Telephony’ is much more than a repeat of
BT Fusion, argues Sacchetto. Unlike its UK predecessor, the
Pirelli phone can be taken out of the house and used to roam
on any publicly available WiFi hotspot. Sacchetto says the
phone can be optimised to automatically switch to a WiFi
hotspot from a cellular network whenever one is in range,
using session initiation protocol (SIP) to effect a ‘seamless’
handover.
Pirelli hints that other operators in Europe have expressed an
interest in the handset and that further announcements are
to be expected over the coming days, although it would not
be drawn further on the details.
The company’s new LDWM product has emerged from the new
photonics division of the Pirelli business. Using Dense
Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM), it is intended to
build on an earlier Pirelli product – the City8, which used
Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) – to up the
capacity available to an operator.
“That’s the differentiator,” says Sacchetto. “We have
developed a carrier-class product, using the approach taken
with CWDM but with the cost structure of DWDM.”
Pirelli is claiming that the new product can help a carrier
realise cost savings of at least 30 percent when compared
with expenditure on older systems. Sacchetto believes that
will be the priority in the consumer broadband market of
tomorrow.
“Today all the Tier 1 carriers in Europe supporting IPTV face
the problem of pushing broadband without increasing the
cost,” he says.
Pirelli shows no sign of easing the pace in the immediate
future. Sacchetto is preparing to launch a third business unit
soon. Although he would not divulge any specific details, he
indicated that its products would help vehicle owners to pay
for their parking spaces using their mobile phones.
|
