Thailand Joins Hong Kong and Australia in Recognising Nova Incepta's expertise and global reach

International telecommunications engineering consultancy group Nova Incepta has notched up another notable success in the AsiaPac region with a Repair and Sustain contract that is helping one of Thailand's key telecoms operators to stretch its resources and maximize its legacy investment. Thailand is a new market for Nova Incepta in a region that is growing in importance for the company.

"Many AsiaPac countries are seen as emerging markets," says Mitch Reynolds, General Manager, Independent Technology Assistance Division at Nova Incepta. "They may be investing in the future in mobile networks and broadband, but their transmission networks are aging just as they are in other continents. Operators need to make the best use of existing assets even when they are building for the future and that is exactly what our Repair service is designed to do."

The Thai telecoms company's network is largely built around transmission equipment that was manufactured in the UK and Italy and has now reached end of life. The network still functions well and reliably, but occasional repairs are needed. Nova Incepta was awarded the order to manage and carry out the repairs, advising on design elements and arranging shipment of the equipment to a specialist repair house in the UK and returning the repaired components to the customer in Thailand.

Nova Incepta has an extensive team consisting of many of the world's leading experts in telecoms and telephony, engineers who have often been involved in the concept and design of previous generations of voice and data transmission. The company has a comprehensive global reach and the expertise to help in difficult cases, where equipment may need to be repaired in order to extend the working life of the existing network, maintain service levels and optimize costs.

"Whilst the telecoms industry focuses on new and next generation technologies such as FTTx, G-PON and LTE, legacy networks are still the backbone of much of our telecommunications," comments Mitch Reynolds. "Managing these networks and extending their life can be extremely cost-effective and frees up resources and funding for investment in next generation networks as they become necessary."

Nova Incepta also supports customers by providing consultancy services for their legacy networks. Mitch Reynolds explains: "Repair is only one activity in maintaining and extending the life of the network, customers also require assistance and refreshers to operate the product and advice on the best course of action. Fixing the hardware is no good, if software or operating procedure issues will curtail life.

"Sometimes a secondary market replacement is better value than repair, or cannibalizing other parts of the network is the only solution.  Nova Incepta retains customers through good service and advice, therefore operators can trust us for the best recommendation. We passionately believe in extended network life, but no product is immortal. At some point the operational and repair costs are too high and the product has to be replaced - Nova Incepta has no agenda to provide products so customers can rely on our advice when this point is reached."

General Manager Mitch Reynolds heads up the Independent Technology Assistance division for Nova Incepta. He brings over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, and his background in developing the multi-vendor service business and securing the first contract for Ericsson in the UK made him the ideal choice to develop Nova Incepta's latest growth area.

The Thailand contract is part of Nova Incepta's growing business in the AsiaPac region, which includes repair and consultancy contracts in Australia, New Zealand, China and Hong Kong.  In Australia, Nova Incepta created a 30-day repair programme for Harris Lucent microwave radio equipment for the 3GIS network, a joint venture operated by Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) and Telstra (for its 3G 2100 mobile customers). This has enabled 3GIS to extend the life of the Harris radio equipment and save substantial costs whilst planning investment in new transmission equipment.

Nova Incepta has also had significant success in servicing the networks of large enterprises in the region. In Hong Kong, for example, the company has repaired Marconi SDH and Nokia Synfonet equipment for a number of companies,  including major utilities and transport operators, through a locally based systems integrator.
"The whole industry is going through immense change, and through our specialized base of skills, we are making a major contribution to the economics of the operator community by keeping their traditional platforms running alongside the new technologies," says Richard Kendall,  Nova Incepta's Managing Director, Europe. "We see AsiaPac as a key region for our Independent Technology Assistance business and we have a growing customer base across the region."