BANGALORE, INDIA: Mika Vehvilainen,COO, Nokia Siemens Networks, interview. Excerpts:

Q: What are your strategies to combat the global slowdown ?
Mika Vehvilainen: Nokia Siemens Networks has had a solid Q4 results globally and in India. Our cost structure has decreased significantly and sales have shot up, and gross margin has improved. We had a savings target of 2 bn a year or so and have achieved this sales target.

Telecom equipment market is expected to go down by five percent or more this year. The situation will differ from market to market. In countries like India, NSN see growth opportunities. That's interesting because we clearly have not seen any slowdown in subscriber uptake here. So, we are quite optimistic about our business in India.

Q: What are the new technologies you are adopting to help operators?
MV: For the first time in the world, four calls have been carried in one GSM radio time slot on January 21, 2009.. We successfully completed a drive test for the Orthogonal Sub Channel (OSC) that doubles the voice capacity of GSM radio network.

This demonstration opens up a profitable growth path for operators, evolving their networks to a new level of efficiency with minimized capex and opex. This is made possible by a software upgrade to existing Flexi EDGE Base Station and base station controller. OSC promises to save costs because it is fully interoperable with existing handsets.,

Q: How are 3G and WiMax which are not seen as mass services, expected to have a booming market?
MV: Given the limited fixed infrastructure in India and the high cost of deploying fixed last mile, wireless technologies are essential to increase broadband penetration in India. Among the wireless technologies available, 3G is important to upgrade path for GSM operators. 3G can even be used both for more efficient delivery of voice and for mobile broadband.

At the urban level, it is the consumers evolving in their mobile experience by using more and more data services; while at the rural level, it is about reducing the overall TCO to drive broadband adoption.

Deployed by more than 200 operators globally and offering close to 1000 different devices, 3G has no major challenges with regards to rural consumer's ability to subscribe to the services.

Q:How do you compare India and China as the two most populous markets in the world?
MV: Interestingly, the markets are growing fast. In China, industrial and political system drives some of the decisions. The effort to provide China specific standard will not work. India has made the right decision of leveraging global technologies and capabilities.