MPLS VPN Service

Case Study

Spice Telecom - Mobile Multimedia through MPLS

Mobile communications is one of the most

competitive industries in the world. Service

companies live or die based on their abilities to

develop the hottest new devices, support the

widest variety of applications, and provide the

best phone coverage at the lowest cost.

Spice Telecom is one of the leading in mobile

telephony provider in India, attracting millions of

sophisticated consumers to its full line of mobile

devices, attractive rate plans, and the latest in

value added services such as music and ringtone

downloads, live radio broadcasts, and over 12

television channels. Spice Telecom knows that

technology and creativity gives an edge in the

marketplace, but dependable and affordable

service is the bedrock for success. Today Spice

is one of the top GSM service providers in India,

poised to expand throughout the region.

Spice Business ChallengesOnly a few years ago, Spice Telecom looked to

upgrading or replacing its legacy communication

infrastructure. The company needed a service

platform that could accommodate the many other

value-added services it hoped to introduce with a

rapid time to market. The older system was

costly, low performance and limited in this

regard. Spice sought a solution that could

accommodate multimedia solutions other than

mobile telephony, aid in its expansion of PAN-

India service coverage, and bring down the

average cost per call.

Also, in terms of maintenance and operations,

Spice felt the current system was too costly and

potentially unreliable over the long run. In short,

the platform had outlived its usefulness. The

company needed a scalable, multimedia-ready,

and highly reliable service infrastructure that was

more cost-effective than its legacy system—all

this was quite a challenge. And to insure

customers were not inconvenienced, migration

to the new solution would have to be totally

seamless with no major service outages or

interruptions.

Tata Communications Innovative Information

Provider Approach

As Spice Telecom took on the challenge with its

innovation information provider approach Tata

Communications joined their mission. Tata

Communications and Spice IT team examined

the Spice infrastructure from the top down: first,

they evaluated the voice traffic history on the

existing network, and then evaluated the

upcoming service offerings and growth

projections. Based on this extensive analysis, both

teams jointly came up with an entirely new

infrastructure that would provide maximum

flexibility and scalability yet cut the current costs.

The new infrastructure was designed around three

major MPLS hub sites—Chandigarh, Bangalore,

and Dehli—while additional co-located IP routers

and media gateways were distributed throughout

the country. All international calls were routed

through the Delhi site where an international

gateway hub resides. As a result , Media gateways

in each region now translate TDM traffic to IP and

vice versa and route the voice and multimedia data

appropriately. All the hub sites are provisioned

using dual last miles to eliminate any single points

of failure in the system. Meanwhile, Tata

Communications' flexible bandwidth assignment

using traffic prediction techniques and traffic flow

control saves Spice Telecom bandwidth costs.

This along with co-location of media gateways and

routers rather than housing and support of its

legacy system also saves the company a

tremendous amount of capital, in addition to

increasing the overall uptime of the network.

Spice Telecom also benefits from the competitive

service level agreements from Tata Communications.

“Our customers are assured of the highest quality

calls and great reliability,” said Mr. R K Singh,

President, Projects at Spice Telecom. “This new

network infrastructure not only delivers the best

service, but has also drastically cut our delivery

costs.”

Tata Communication's one-stop

solution for Spice Telecom included

network infrastructure and flow

controls, co-location space, and global

connectivity. The transition from the

legacy system to the MPLS platform

was a tremendous success.

Partners in Success Replicating Success

Tata Communications and Spice worked together

in partnership mode to understand the challenges

and devise the best fit solution, which enabled

Spice to achieve key benefits including:

? Increased focus on the launch of lot of

localized content & unique Value added

services

? Increased Customer Base through bundled

offerings including flexi-tariff plans with

aggressive pricing strategies

?PAN India expansion in the GSM Mobile

Space

?Rapid Time to Market- Key Driver for today's

mobile market growth

Because the new MPLS service platform has

delivered such rock-solid performance and

scalability in its initial stages, Spice Telecom is

looking forward to replicating this success

throughout the region, adding as many new

subscribers and patrons as possible with

additional gateways. “Time-to-market is a key

factor in this industry,” Mr. R K Singh further

commented, “We know that we can depend on the

Tata Communications MPLS network to deliver

quickly and efficiently when we need it.” With the

highly scalable and flexible bandwidth capabilities

of the Tata Communications MPLS backbone,

Spice Telecom is a solid mobile solutions provider

today and will undoubtedly continue its success far

into the future.

Mr. R.K. Singh, President - New Projects

“Time-to-market is a key factor in this

industry. We know that we can depend on

the Tata Communications’ MPLS network

to deliver quickly and efficiently when we

need it.”

Conclusion

Bringing down the average cost incurred

per voice call.

Migrating from legacy systems to a next

generation high performance infrastructure

capable enough to handle VAS solutions

other than the mobile telephony services.

Rolling out PAN India distribution & service

coverage, easy international expansion.

Exploring an innovative, cost effective,

reliable & scalable mobile backbone

solutions.

Nearly 50% reduction in costs : Increased

Customer Base through bundled offerings

including flexi-tariff plans with aggressive

pricing strategies.

New network enables unique value- added

services and localized content

PAN India expansion in the GSM Mobile

Space with new infrastructure : Partnerships

with global service providers.

One-stop solution provider: Superior fault

tolerance and disaster recovery.

Business Challenges of

Spice Telecom

Business Benefits of Adopting

Tata Communications’

MPLS Service

Tata Communications, a member of the $62.5

billion Tata Group, is a leading global provider

of a new world of communications. The

emerging markets communications leader

leverages its advanced solutions capabilities

and domain expertise across its global and

pan-India network to deliver managed

solutions to multi-national and Indian

enterprises, service providers, and Indian

consumers. Tata Communications’ range of

services include transmission, IP, converged

voice, mobility, managed network connectivity,

hosting and storage, managed security,

managed collaboration and business

transformation for global enterprises and

network, with connectivity to more than 200

countries across 300 POPs, and more than 1

million square feet of data center and co-

location facilities. Tata Communications’

unique emerging market depth and breadth of

reach includes a national fiber backbone

network and access to network in over 60 cities

and 125 POPs in India, strategic investments in

South African converged services operator,

Neotel, Sri Lanka and Nepal and, subject to

fulfillment of conditions precedent, a 50%

o w n e r s h i p i n C h i n a E n t e r p r i s e

Communications (CEC) providing full country

VPN coverage in China. Servicing customers

from its offices in over 80 cities in 40 countries,

India, the Company was named “Best

W h o l e s a l e C a r r i e r ” a t t h e W o r l d

Communications Awards in 2006, “Best Pan-

Asian Wholesale Provider” at the 2006 and

2007 Capacity Magazine Global Wholesale

Telecommunications Awards and was awarded

“Best Progress in Emerging Markets” at the

2008 Mobile Communication Awards. Tata

Communications Limited is listed on the

Bombay Stock Exchange and the National

Stock Exchange of India and its ADRs are listed

on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: TCL).

www.tatacommunications.com

For more information on Global VPN Services, visit www.tatacommunications.com