Peripatetic telecom man

ICE PEOPLE

UT Starcom's country manager & director (south Asia operations) Ruchir Godura is a travel buff. With his Swedish-Danish wife Anna, he's already visited 33 countries. The couple's target: 100.

"We've seen almost all the safe places there are to see and some of them many times over," miles Godura.Though he may be heading next for New Zealand, Godura's all-time favourites are the picture postcard Scandinavian countries.

For now, however, Godura is keeping his date UT Starcom's India ambitions. Set up three years back, UT Starcom has a $50 million operation here and is diversifying into other areas. CDMA handsets, for example.

"We have acquired a US company in CDMA switching as well as a CDMA handset manufacturer called Audioworks which is well known in North America and Canada," says Godura. The handsets will be made in China and then brought to India.

UT Starcom also expects big bucks in wireless broadband "� and video-on-demand via telephone line. Six months back, it launched a pilot project with the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and put its hardware in a telephone exchange in Gurgaon.

Nearly 50 BSNL subscribers in the area were given a set top box and their phone lines were attached to it. "Today we offer them 10 free-to-air channels and a limited video-on-demand library of films and music. The picture quality is very clear. The phone line remains functional even when the TV is on," says Godura.

Godura is an American citizen who worked at UT Starcom's New Jersey office since 1996. He believes that India's wireless market size is over-hyped, though its potential is attractive.

That's why he's in no hurry to return to the US. Also, who would give him golf lessons for Rs 350 an hour in the US? "It will cost me at least $ 300 an hour back there," the golf buff rues.