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In an interaction with ET’s Danish Khan and Devina Sengupta, Vora said that Vodafone Idea is confident of achieving its target of June 2020 to completely merge both networks in the country.
T<\/strong>ell us about the integration progress so far?<\/b>
There are three large parallel programs we are running in our company. One is about de-duplication and releasing synergies which are delivering a lot of benefits both in terms of cost reduction as well as putting extra spectrum to use which has the capacity. Secondly, we are adding a huge new capacity layer on our network. The third thing is we are also running a massive transformation program where we are putting in many of the 5G or next-gen technologies into our 4G<\/a> plus network.
We are creating a programmable network which will have very large scale cloud deployment, edge computing. We believe this will be the largest deployment in the country. Most likely it will the largest deployment in the world of edge cloud.
Those are three programs running in parallel.
The biggest benefit of the merger was these two companies and their spectrum position. We have the largest amount of FDD spectrum in the country. The biggest benefit is the spectrum benefit.
We have over 1800 MHz of spectrum across the country which is more than anyone else. Out of that total liberalized holding is larger than the other players. We have a long life left on the spectrum, which is also very important. It shows that the long-term roadmap for us is looking better and liabilities going forward are also
Additionally, we were the first operator in the world to do dynamic spectrum refarming. We are deploying this at a larger scale across the country.
We have completed 14 circles so far. 78% of the districts in the country are now consolidated, while 62% of my spectrum has now been consolidated. 70% of my sites have been consolidated and 36% are the top 50% of cities have also been consolidated.
Originally at the time of the merger, we said that it will be a 3-year long program. We are 13 months in, and we are far ahead of our merger plan and we are well in our track to deliver by June 2020, a commitment given to our investors.
So far, we have increased capacity by 1.8 times from day zero (September 1, 2018). The coverage has also increased for Vodafone and Idea brands. There's been a 40% increase in traffic from day zero, while 4G throughput has gone up from 1.5 to 2 times across all properties.
In terms of cost savings, 76,000 sites have been de-duplicated. We have rolled out new 60,000 technology sites, including FDD, TDD sites, Massive MIMO sites, and small cell sites. 10,000 sites are the run rate for the last six months or 14 sites every hour. At the peak, we have been doing 21 sites every hour.
It is actually going well and faster than we had imagined.
We are seeing this improvement through consolidation in terms of data throughput.
Nothing of this scale has happened anywhere in the world. The closest of this would be TMobile-Sprint merger which will start in the US. They say that it will take them 3 years before they see any benefit and that's when they are less than half of our size. We are doing it in half the time for the network which is double in size and we are doing it under very trying circumstances. We have constantly struggled with law and order issues, vandalism issues, and we have to struggle with natural calamities and all unpredictability that India has as opposed to the US.
How do acknowledge the work of your employees involved in this integration that work under trying circumstances?<\/b>
<\/b>We are doing things from time to time to recognize their efforts. This is so widespread and there is a recognition program that runs in every circle. Whatever we do is probably lower what they really deserve. I don't see any other place in the world where people would be so dedicated and put in this kind of work. I have worked in multiple countries and I have not seen this kind of sacrifice.
What are other network-related challenges so far since two big networks are coming together?<\/b>
Challenges one would expect anyway in such a program. We are bringing in two different technologies and networks together. In the majority of cases, the two vendors were different. For instance, Vodafone would have had Nokia as a vendor, Idea might have had Ericsson. We are trying to bring this harmonization and taking the equipment out from one and packing it all up and sending it to another circle where we have chosen that vendor to be deployed. the logistical challenges are enormous in programs like this.
This is one area where people don't realize that you can plan a lot of technology things but there are logistical aspects when you encounter all of the issues that you face in India - road, regulations, managing subcontractors - so this has been one of the biggest challenges we have had.
The teams have really stepped up and delivered well because a huge part of synergy is coming from the re-use of the equipment. There was so much duplication. What happens is these 76,000 de-duplicated sites and equipment is they have to be taken down and sent back to the warehouse and repackage and take all these equipment from multiple sites to create a brand new site.
Getting this logistics program really to run from end to end is really a mammoth challenge. That has been the biggest challenge and we have explained how that has gone.
This is the vendor harmonization. We had to make sure that our vendor partners have gotten sufficient incentive schemes to stay fully engaged. we have successfully managed that as well.
I can't comment on commercial details around this. We have awarded enough business; therefore they remain as committed and deliver to our expectations.
Are there any issues around payment terms by some of the vendors?<\/b>
If those were the challenges, we would not have been able to deliver all these things because they are an integral part of our program and they deserve as much credit as my employees for delivering this. We have not had any such issues. I can't comment beyond that because that is covered by NDAs we have with them.
Have you deployed POs for deployments?<\/b>
This program was meant to be a three-year program at the beginning of the merger and we are going to complete it in 18 months. If there were any delays, my program would not be running at this pace. Anything beyond that I can't really comment because that is covered under NDAs with our vendors. But, not a single vendor has delayed anything nor told us about any delays or told they can't complete the project. They have all stepped up. They have put in whatever the resources are required. There are no commercial issues that are getting into the way of my program and delaying it whatsoever.
Has Huawei's global challenges and band impacted VIL<\/a> integration?<\/b>
We have had the fastest integration. The circles that are with Huawei -- Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Bihar, and Orissa. Within Delhi, we have integrated East NCR, Kerala is majorly done, Karnataka, Punjab, Bihar, and Orissa are fully done. All my supplies have continued to come and being deployed from Huawei.
There are worries about network congestion. Why are consumers, especially those in metros, complaining about network congestion? How are you faring in the rural area?<\/b>
Network congestion can mean different things to different people and we will have to look at specific issues that people are facing. My network statistics are getting better. There may be specific areas where other issues which may be impacting network performance. Lot of them tend to be environmental issues.
From time to time we have vandalism affecting our fibre, our sites, we also have an issue of diesel pilferage affecting many sites. When we try to take that on we get a strong push back from the people who are doing the pilfering. We have also had natural calamities and tremendous rain affecting multiple circles. All of this impacts some level of network quality being compromised.
Now there is a war effort to manage our way through that. Now there may be issues from specific geographies or locations, at a given point of time but when I look across my network, things have improved across indices.
But you are in the middle of the integration process so it is more important that things happen within the deadline that you have set for yourself. <\/b>
We have always worked under deadlines and nothing in this company happens without deadlines. June 30, 2020, is the deadline, and we have learned to manage the business, how we work within the deadlines to give the right customer experience and meet customer expectations, that is not a compromise we would make. I want to assure my customers that the integration program in no way implies that we are willing to compromise on the quality, experience by our customers. That is first and foremost part of the plan.
We have a robust framework that we put in where we have a central team, that looks at customer experience and runs a war room across all the circles. These war rooms run on a weekly basis in every circle and every month at a national level. In these war rooms, we look at all the areas where there is room to improve quality. This is a program we started before integration, during the integration and will continue post-integration. One should not carry the impression that we are compromising quality for the sake of integration.
Is there capacity challenge you are facing?<\/b>
India has the highest data usage for mobile operators in the world. We have shown the largest improvement in throughput speed 51% for Vodafone brand and 24% for Idea brand in the last 9 months. It is the clearest indication of congestion in the data networks, because when you have congestion in 4G network, speed suffers.
We have been improving those speeds so yes, there was an issue on 4G networks 9 months ago, which we have thoroughly addressed, everywhere we have integrated. Other data also show similar improvement and we have improved far more than our competitors. This is because we have a great spectrum position.
In addition to that, we have deployed over 10,000 massive MIMOs in India today. This is the largest deployment of massive MIMOs in India and neither of my 2 competitors has that. They are 100-200 and we are 10,000 plus. This is largest deployment outside China and in the world. We have over 10,000 small cells deployed strategically to ensure we are addressing all those congestion issues in our 4G data networks and we are delivering consistently great experience for our customers.
Analysts have said that VIL has not invested in 4G sites aggressively as compared to its rivals. Your comments.<\/b>
4G deployment started 3 years ago for everybody. Vodafone and Idea were competitors at that time so many of the sites that they had built were duplicating each other. The thesis for this merger is that by combining the companies are reducing the de-duplication, you will release a lot of synergies in terms of cost and capacity. Besides spectrum benefits, a lot of benefits comes from removing the sites which were implemented independently and redeploying it. If you look at the combined investment of Vodafone and Idea over that period of time, you would see that we have been investing substantially. It takes a bit of time to de-duplicate the network and therefore the release of the capacity is now happening along with our integration. We have sufficient sites to serve all our business plans in terms of customers, revenue and we are confident of achieving that.
You said you have sufficient spectrum and auctions are coming up. Does this mean VIL will not participate?<\/b>
The industry is in a serious debt situation and most of the debt is towards the government on the spectrum that we have already acquired. When you look at the debt burden that we are carrying, does it make sense to increase the debt burden with another round of auctions? This is something that needs to be relooked at or there are other models like Japan, like China, which are more advanced economies that India and have a clear industrial policy related to telecom. In both these countries was given for free. There was a recognition in these 2 countries that 5G would drive the digital economy. Those countries had taken a call that it is not something we want to make a source of for our treasury of revenues. But we will enable it to make large investments and big deployment of 5G. We also need to find use cases of India, which will deliver maximum value and benefit for the country.
What about the 4G spectrum?<\/b>
We have plenty of spectrum, more than anybody else. We will participate as per our business needs. Right now, I have plenty of spectrum everywhere, I am well positioned so I am no in desperate need to go out and get spectrum. For spectrum auctions 3-4 years ago, the imperative was very different.
India did something very unique where incumbents buy business all over again. No other large economy has done that and if you wanted to stay you had to buy your license all over again. No major economy has done anything like this. You create desperate situations out of desperation. Desperate situation tries desperate behaviors which is why we have ended up here.
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沃达丰(Vodafone)首席技术官想法说不绝望地需要频谱;行业的一个严重的债务状况
沃达丰(Vodafone)首席技术官想法Vishant Vora说电信拥有大量的光谱和不在一个绝望的需要走出去,获得频谱在即将到来的拍卖。
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与ET的丹麦汗和Devina森古普塔,Vora表示,沃达丰想法有信心实现2020年6月的目标完全合并两个网络。
T 告诉我们关于集成进展到目前为止?
有三个大型并行程序运行在我们公司。一是关于重复数据删除和发布协同效应提供很多好处方面降低成本以及额外的频谱使用的能力。其次,我们添加一个巨大的新的能力层网络。第三件事是我们也运行大规模转换程序,我们将在许多5克或进入我们的下一代技术4 g+网络。
我们正在创建一个可编程的网络会有超大规模的云部署,边缘计算。我们相信这将是这个国家最大的部署。最有可能将云边缘的世界上最大的部署。
这些是三个并行运行的程序。
合并的最大好处是这两家公司及其光谱位置。我们有最多的FDD频谱。最大的好处是频谱效益。
我们有超过1800 MHz的频谱在全国超过其他任何人。的总自由大于其他玩家。我们有一个长寿的光谱,这也是非常重要的。这表明长期路线图我们看起来更好和负债也前行
此外,我们是世界上第一个运营商动态频谱refarming。我们是部署在全国大范围内。
到目前为止我们已经完成了14圈。全国78%的地区现在合并,而62%的频谱已经合并。70%的我的网站得到巩固和36% 50%的城市也得到巩固。
最初在合并的时候,我们说,这将是一个三年的长期计划。我们是13个月,我们是远远领先于我们的合并计划,我们在跟踪将在2020年6月,承诺给我们的投资者。
到目前为止,我们已经增加了1.8倍的容量从0天(2018年9月1日)。的报道也增加了沃达丰(Vodafone)和品牌理念。有从天零流量增加了40%,而4 g吞吐量已经从1.5到2倍的所有属性。
在节约成本方面,76000个站点已经减少。我们推出了新的60000年技术网站,包括FDD, TDD网站,大规模的MIMO网站,和小细胞网站。10000个站点的运行速度是过去六个月或每小时14网站。在山顶,我们一直在做每小时21个站点。
它实际上是顺利和更快的比我们的想象。
我们看到这种改善通过整合的数据吞吐量。
没有这种规模在世界任何地方发生的那样。这将是最接近的TMobile-Sprint合并将开始在美国。他们说需要3年才能看到任何好处,他们是不到一半的大小。我们正在做一半的时候两倍大小的网络,我们在很努力的情况下做这件事。我们不断在法律和秩序问题,破坏问题,我们必须与自然灾害斗争和不可预测性,印度与美国。
承认员工的工作如何参与这个集成在情况下工作吗?
我们正在做的事情不时地认识到他们的努力。这是如此普遍,有一个识别程序运行在每个圆。无论我们做什么可能是降低他们真正应得的。我不明白世界上任何其他地方人们会如此专注,投入这种工作。我已经在多个国家工作,我没有见过这样的牺牲。
其它网络相关挑战是什么到目前为止由于两大网络在一起吗?
挑战一个期望无论如何在这样一个项目。我们将在两个不同的技术和网络联系在一起。在大多数情况下,这两个供应商是不同的。例如,沃达丰(Vodafone)会有诺基亚作为供应商,想法可能有爱立信。我们正在努力把这个协调和设备从一个和包装起来,并将其发送给另一个圆,我们选择供应商部署。这样的项目的后勤挑战是巨大的。
这是人没有意识到的一个领域,你可以计划很多技术的东西,但当你遇到所有后勤方面的问题你面对在印度——道路、法规、管理分包商,所以这是我们的最大挑战之一。
交付的团队真的加大了,因为一个巨大的协同效应的一部分是来自设备的重用。有这么多重复。情况是这76000减少站点和设备必须拆卸和发送回仓库和重新包装并采取所有这些设备来自多个站点创建一个全新的网站。
让这个物流程序真正从端到端是一个巨大的挑战。一直是最大的挑战,我们已经解释了,已经过去了。
这是供应商的协调。我们必须确保我们的供应商合作伙伴得到足够的激励计划保持充分参与。我们已经成功地管理。
我不能评论在这个商业细节。我们已经获得足够的业务;因此他们仍然提交和交付我们的预期。
有问题的付款条件的供应商吗?
如果这些都是挑战,我们将无法提供这些东西,因为他们是我们项目的一个组成部分,他们应该得到尽可能多的信用我的员工提供。我们没有这样的问题。我不能评论之外,因为这是保密协议,我们和他们。
你部署POs部署?
这个计划是一项为期三年的项目合并的开始,我们将在18个月内完成。如果有任何延误,我的程序不会运行在这个速度。除此之外我真的不能发表言论,因为这是在与我们的供应商保密协议。但是,没有任何一个供应商推迟了也没有告诉我们任何延误或告诉他们不能完成项目。他们都加强了。他们有任何所需的资源。没有商业问题的方式进入我的程序和延迟。
华为的全球挑战和乐队的影响垂直注入逻辑集成?
我们有最快的集成。与华为的圈子——德里,卡纳塔克邦,喀拉拉邦,旁遮普,比哈尔邦,奥里萨邦。在新德里,我们综合东NCR,喀拉拉邦无聊,卡纳塔克邦,旁遮普,比哈尔邦,奥里萨邦完全完成。我所有的供应继续从华为来部署。
有担心网络拥塞。为什么消费者,尤其是那些在地铁,抱怨网络拥堵?你在农村表现怎么样?
网络拥塞可能意味着不同的事情不同的人,我们必须看看人们面临的具体问题。我的网络统计数据变得更好。可能有特定地区其他的问题可能会影响网络性能。很多人往往是环境问题。
不时我们破坏影响纤维,我们的网站,我们也有一个问题的柴油失窃影响许多网站。当我们试图后退,我们得到一个强大的推动做偷窃的人。我们也有自然灾害和巨大的雨影响多个圈子。所有的这些影响一定程度的网络质量妥协。
现在有一个战争来管理我们通过这种方式。现在从特定区域或地点可能会有问题,在给定的时间点,但当我看到在我的网络,在指标情况有所好转。
但你是中间的一体化进程这是更重要的事情发生在你为自己设定的最后期限。
我们一直工作在最后期限和发生了什么在这个公司没有最后期限。2020年6月30日是最后期限,我们学会了管理业务,我们如何工作期限内给正确的客户体验和满足客户的期望,这不是一个我们会做出妥协。我想向我的客户保证集成项目绝不意味着我们愿意妥协的质量,由我们的客户体验。首先这是计划的一部分。
我们有一个健壮的框架,我们将有一个中心团队,关注客户体验并运行作战室在所有的圆圈。这些战争房间每周运行在每一个圈,每个月在国家层面上。在这些战争的房间,我们看的所有领域,在这里有足够的空间以提高质量。这是一个程序我们开始在集成之前,在集成和将继续post-integration。我们不应该携带的印象,我们是牺牲质量的集成。
有能力你面临的挑战?
印度有世界上最高的数据使用移动运营商。我们展示了吞吐量最大的改进速度51%,沃达丰品牌为24%,品牌在过去的9个月。最明显的迹象是在数据网络拥塞,因为当你在4 g网络拥堵,有速度。
是的,我们一直在改善这些速度4 g网络上有一个问题9个月前,我们彻底解决,到处都有集成。其他数据也显示类似的改善和改进的远远超过我们的竞争对手。这是因为我们有一个伟大的频谱位置。
除此之外,我们有今天在印度部署10000多大规模的再分配。这是最大的大规模分布式天线部署在印度和我的2个竞争对手都没。他们是100 - 200和10000 +。这是世界上最大的部署中国以外的和。我们有超过10000个小细胞部署战略,以确保我们解决那些拥堵问题4 g数据网络,我们为客户提供持续丰富的经验。
分析人士说,维尔并没有投入4 g网站积极相比其竞争对手。您的评论。
4 g部署3年前开始对每一个人。沃达丰(Vodafone)和当时的很多想法是竞争对手的网站,他们互相复制。这个合并的论文是结合公司减少重复数据删除,你会释放大量的增效方面的成本和能力。除了谱的好处,很多好处来自删除网站的实现独立并重新部署它。如果你看看沃达丰和想法的组合投资在这段时间,你会发现我们已经大幅投资。需要花费一点时间,减少重复的网络,因此释放能力现在是发生在与我们的集成。我们有足够的网站服务我们所有的商业计划的客户,达成这一目标的收入和我们有信心。
你说你有足够的频谱和拍卖。这是否意味着维尔不会参与?
这个行业是一个严重的债务状况和大部分的债务是政府向我们已经获得的光谱。当你看我们携带的债务负担,是否有意义,增加债务负担另一轮拍卖吗?这是需要重新在或有其他模型与日本一样,中国更发达经济体,印度和有明确的产业政策与电信有关。在这两个国家是免费的。有一个识别这两个国家,5 g驱动数字经济。这些国家采取了一个电话,这不是我们想要的东西为我们的财政收入的来源。但是我们将使它进行大型投资和大型部署5克。我们还需要找到印度的用例,将提供最大的价值和利益。
4 g谱呢?
我们有足够的光谱,比任何人都要大。我们将参与按业务需求。现在,我有足够的频谱无处不在,我好定位所以我不急需出去得到频谱。对频谱拍卖3 - 4年前,当务之急是非常不同的。
印度做了一件非常独特,在职者购买业务。没有其他大型经济体所做的,如果你想要保持你必须购买许可证。没有主要经济已经做过类似的工作。绝望的情况下创建的绝望。绝望的情况下试着绝望的行为,这就是为什么我们已经结束。
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