Mr. Anil D. Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Communications, a part of the Reliance ADA Group, is the VOICE&DATA Telecom Person of the Year 2007. This was announced by Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director of CyberMedia, publishers of VOICE&DATA here today. 

“Riding on robust subscriber and revenue growth, the equipment and services sector of the telecom industry has done well in the last fiscal to cross $40 billion revenue mark,” Mr. Gupta added.

Mr. Ambani, regarded as one of the foremost corporate leaders of contemporary India, was chosen for this honour for his leadership qualities in steering Reliance Communications into the top telecommunication player in the CDMA technology with around 28 million users. Past winners of VOICE&DATA Telecom Person of the Year award include Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani, Dayanidhi Maran and Sunil Bharti Mittal.

Mr. Nripendra Misra, Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, will present the 8th Annual V&D100 Awards in New Delhi today.

Tejas Networks is the Emerging Company of the Year. The company has been awarded for their contribution in the optical transmission space. Mr. Rajiv C Mody, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Sasken Communication Technologies is the Technovator of the Year. Sasken is one of the leading software technology providers for imaging video and music industry globally. More than 50 million phones carry Sasken’s Intellectual Property. These two awards have been announced for the first time. 

The Telecom Person of the Year, the Emerging Company of the Year and the Technovator of the Year were announced following an 8-member jury meet of eminent professionals led by Dr. DPS Seth, ex-CMD of BSNL and ex-member TRAI. The other members of the jury were Mr. SD Saxena, Director - Finance, BSNL; Mr CS Rao, Chairman, Communications Convergence Committee, ASSOCHAM; Dr Mukund Govind Rajan, Director, Tata Teleservices; Mr SC Khanna, Secretary General, AUSPI; Mr. Sunil Gujral, EVP & CTO, Quatrro BPO Solutions; Mr Amitabh Singhal, Director General, ISPAI, and Mr. Prasanto K Roy, Chief Editor, CyberMedia.

For the VOICE&DATA survey, the leading telecom publication covered nearly 500 equipment and 150 services companies. As per the survey, India’s telecom services industry grew 22% to Rs. 107,681 crore during 2006-07 on the back of a 46% increase in telecom subscriber base. With a subscriber base of 206 million one in five Indians has access to a phone. The telecom equipment sector grew 44% in 2006-07 posting revenue of Rs. 77,170 crore.

Other category winners included:
Audio Video Conferencing--Polycom
Broadband--UTStarcom
Fixed Phones--Bharti Teletech
Fixed Wireless Phones, CDMA handsets--LG Electronics
Mobile Phones, GSM Handsets--Nokia
Modem--Atrie Technology
Network Integration--Wipro Infotech
Network Storage--EMC
Network Management Services--HCL Comnet
Router, Switch, WLAN--Cisco
Structured Cabling--Tyco Electronics
Test & Measurement--Agilent Technologies
Telecom Cables--Sterlite Optical
Telecom Turnkey--ITI
Transmission--ECI Telecom
Telecom Software--TCS
Voice Solutions--Avaya GlobalConnect
Fixed, NLD, ISP--BSNL
Cellular--Bharti Airtel
ILD--VSNL
VSAT--Hughes
Radio Trunking--Arvind Mills
Independent Infrastructure Provider--GIL
VAS--OnMobile
WiMax--Aperto 
Wireless Infrastructure--Ericsson
Enterprise Equipment--Cisco
Telecom Equipment—Nokia
Telecom Services--BSNL

V&D100 is the most comprehensive annual survey of the Indian telecom services and equipment industries. It is the most trusted and widely used survey for those seeking statistics on Indian communications. It is also the most comprehensive, as it covers a wide range of segments. It is perhaps the only ‘single source’ of such diverse information. 

The Top 10 equipment vendors in the country were Nokia (Rs. 15,891 crore), Ericsson (Rs. 5,004 crore), Motorola (Rs. 4,090 crore), Cisco (Rs. 4,037 crore), Alcatel-Lucent (Rs. 3,500 crore), Wipro (Rs. 3,471 crore), LG Electronics (Rs. 3,140 crore), TCS (Rs. 3,006 crore), Infosys (Rs. 2,681 crore) and ZTE (Rs. 2,596 crore).

About CyberMedia
CyberMedia is South Asia's first and largest specialty media house, with ten publications (including Dataquest, DQ Channels and DQ Week, PCQuest, VOICE&DATA and Global Services) in the infotech, telecom, consumer electronics and biotech areas, and is a media value chain including the Internet (www.ciol.com), events and television. The group’s media services include market research (IDC India), an online job board (CyberMedia Dice), content management, multimedia, and media education.  

For more information, please contact:
At Strategic Communications and PR
Sanjiv Kataria
+ 91 98100 48095
Sanjiv.kataria@gmail.com  

At CyberMedia:  
Baburajan K
Voice&Data
Cyber House, B-35, Sec 32, 
Gurgaon 122001 India
Mobile: +91 9811174488
Phone: +91 124 4031234
baburajank@cybermedia.co.in