| Bell Labs in India Opens Doors To State-of-the-Art Research Centre January 21, 2005 ? Bangalore, India, is a vibrant city, full of energy and optimism. It is one of the fastest growing cities in Asia, and leads India in technological and cultural development. Its blend of science and beauty has made it an attractive city for elite researchers and scientists around the world -- and a perfect fit for Lucent Bell Labs.  | | Scientists at Bell Labs Research Centre, India, will contribute to fundamental advances in understanding how to build, monitor and manage the most complex global communications networks in the world. | On December 22, 2004, Bangalore welcomed another prestigious research center -- the Bell Labs Research Centre at Bangalore -- to its long list of admired institutions. "This is a great day for Bell Labs and India," said Jeff Jaffe, president, Bell Labs Research and Advanced Technologies, to a select gathering of scientists and dignitaries during the inauguration of Lucent's newest research center. The center will pursue the kind of basic and applied research in communications software that has made the R&D laboratory famous around the world. "By opening this lab in India, we are demonstrating Lucent's commitment to creating a long-term research presence here and in the Asia region," Jaffe said. "Research breakthroughs often come from a small, elite group of scientists who begin with an innovative idea and make it a reality. We can expect great things from this team." Led by Executive Director Rajeev Rastogi, the scientists at Bell Labs in India will focus on developing state-of-the-art software systems for enabling the world's leading wireline and wireless service providers to deploy and manage high-speed, highly reliable multimedia networks. "We selected Bangalore because of the synergy we will create with Lucent's development centers here," said Rastogi. "By working closely with Lucent's product groups, we can quickly convert our innovative ideas into products more effectively." Rajeev Rastogi will report to Krishan Sabnani, senior vice president of Networking Research at Bell Labs, who also attended the inauguration ceremony. Dignitaries on hand to inaugurate the new center were N. Dharam Singh, chief minister of the state of Karnataka in southern India, Sam Pitroda, chairman, C-Sam, U.S.A., and key advisor of India's National Advisory Council, and special guest of honor Michael Thomas, U.S. chief of consulate from the American Embassy. Bell Labs India -- Initial Focus
The scientists at the new center will contribute to fundamental advances in understanding how to build, monitor and manage the most complex and interactive global communications networks in the world, and work extensively on Operation Support Systems (OSS) for voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) networks, to enable service providers to offer carrier-grade voice and other services such as IP video over an IP packet infrastructure. The labs also will focus on design and planning that will involve traffic engineering of the core network and service assurance which includes monitoring of end-to-end voice service quality over packet and EV-DO networks. India Welcomes Bell Labs
For India, the new facility in Bangalore will bring opportunities for researchers to focus on innovations in computing and communications software, and to partner with Lucent's customers as they deploy new technologies and devise innovative solutions to their challenges, including wireless data and EV-DO. The team also will support the work done in Lucent's development labs in Bangalore and Hyderabad, and assist as needed in meeting the needs of Lucent's customers. "Lucent understands the telecommunications marketplace in India," said C.S. Rao, president and CEO of Lucent Technologies India. "We have demonstrated that understanding for the past decade, and plan to continue to demonstrate it in the decades ahead." Bell Labs in India is the second research facility to open outside the United States in the last fiscal year. The Bell Labs research center in Ireland opened this past June. The team in Bangalore is a fully integrated part of the global Bell Labs R&D community, and complements the existing Bell Labs and Lucent development centers in India, which include more than 1,300 software engineers already on staff who support customers in India and around the world. "Bringing a world-class research center to India allows us to tap into a very large pool of talented software engineers from internationally respected universities and continue our tradition of innovation and scientific excellence around the world," said Rastogi. With Bangalore's mix of rapid technical expansion and beautiful flowering trees and parks, Bell Labs' culture of innovation and creativity is sure to flourish in what is known as both the "Garden City" and "Silicon Valley" of India. ? Updated January 2005 | 
