A 40:40:20 JV among ITI, Tellabs, and IFU Denmark, Fibcom India registered an impressive growth of 149 percent during the last fiscal. It accounted for almost 100 percent share in SDH equipment purchase of DoT.

More than 95 percent of its revenues came from sales to DoT. It had to also supply the quota of some of the lowest bidders who backed out from DoT’s earlier SDH tender. However, in the next three years, the company plans to get one-third of its revenue from private operators. It is ready with products for WDM, the fast emerging technology for high-speed backbones.

But DoT will still be there. The company already has an order of Rs 100 crore and hopes to do business anywhere between Rs 200-250 crore by the year-end.

According to market sources, Tellabs is planning to offload its global SDH manufacturing to Fibcom. If that happens, its present status of 100 percent domestic sales could well change to a mix of export and domestic revenues.

It remains to be seen whether it follows the same path that many others have—consolidating all Indian companies into one unit—or not. However, unlike others who have sleeping Indian partners, Fibcom’s Indian parent ITI is a golden goose. Breaking up with ITI could mean allowing others to partner with ITI to serve the DoT needs. That seems unlikely in the near future, till DoT remains the predominant buyer.