“We Are At The Beginning Of A Huge Change In The Networking Industry”

This article was published in Digital Terminal on May 13, 2021. You can read the original article here

An interview with Pravin S Bhandarkar Founder and CEO at RtBrick

The networking market is dynamically changing in India due to the huge demand coming in for high-speed broadband. Telcom operators continue to witness challenges on the front of broadband traffic, especially during the pandemic when there is much load on the network infrastructure. RtBrick is one of the market players in the networking market to support telecom vendors in having effective solutions. Rajeev Ranjan held an insightful chat with Pravin S Bhandarkar Founder and CEO, RtBrick to know more about the company’s plan. The discussion revolved around the market landscape during the 2nd wave of pandemic, RtBrick’s growth strategy and how they help telcos to conquer the challenges. Read below the excerpts: 

Rajeev: Please tell me about RtBrick. How are you positioned in the Indian telecom sector? 

Pravin: RtBrick is pioneering a major new networking technology, taking on traditional US, European and Chinese vendors from its base in India. We’ve developed networking software that runs on open hardware from multiple vendors, like we are used to seeing in computing. This is a radical new approach to building telecoms networks and we’re seeing strong interest from all around the world. 

Rajeev: How has been the growth of RtBrick in the last one year? What is your vision? 

Pravin: This year has seen some significant achievements for RtBrick. We completed another cashflow positive year, and cemented our position as one of the networking industry’s most important pioneers. The last year marked the live deployment of our software in Deutsche Telekom’s broadband network in Germany, Europe’s largest telco, to provide broadband internet services at speeds up to 1Gbps. RtBrick was also recognized as finalists in three prestigious industry awards - Leading Lights Most Innovative Telecoms Product, Broadband Awards Best Fixed Access Solution and Computing Technology Product Awards for Infrastructure Product of The Year.

Rajeev: How do you see the changing market scenario? How do you work to help telcos amid the fast-changing market landscape? 

Pravin: Telcos are in a difficult position, having to deliver increasing volumes of broadband traffic with relatively flat revenues from each consumer. The increase in online TV traffic and, of course, increased working from home and video calling have compounded these challenges. This means telcos are looking for new ways to operate their networks, which is where RtBrick comes in. Separating the traditional routing systems into independent hardware and software reduces costs significantly, gives them more flexibility to change and makes it easier for them to automate their processes, running their networks more like the cloud-native IT players run their IT infrastructure. 

Rajeev: How are you working amidst the 2nd wave of COVID-19 pandemic? How has it affected your business? 

Pravin: Despite the challenges presented by the global pandemic, we transitioned to a remote working organization and we have maintained a strong engineering presence and augmented the team in strategic areas. Although some customer projects have been delayed, the overall growth in broadband traffic, and its importance to our society, is now greater than ever. 

Rajeev: Please brief me about your GTM strategy and expansion plans. 

Pravin: We are at the beginning of a huge change in the networking industry. We are currently working on opportunities all around the world and continue to expand our customer facing teams alongside our Indian engineering base.