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Sloka Telecom |
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Founded:2004
Headquarters:Bangalore, India
U.S. office: New Jersey
Founder and CEO - Sujai Karampuri
CTO and Co-Founder - Venkata Subbaih
Investors: Self and Angel Investors
Headcount:30
Website:www.slokatelecom.com
Sloka Telecom is a provider of broadband wireless solutions to address the new needs and requirements of cellular operators and network equipment vendors in emerging markets. The company earns revenue by direct sale of its products to operators, service providers, Wireless ISPs, and System Integrators as a network equipment vendor, and also as OEM supplier to other network equipment vendors.The key offerings of Sloka are WiMAX network solutions - base stations and subscriber stations (CPEs).
The real differentiation of Sloka is the sum of all the technological factors below. However, cost effectiveness is the key factor. The Sloka team brainstormed heavily to achieve cost effectiveness through many innovations in the areas of product development, like architecture of the product, software design, hardware design, mechanical design, thermal analysis and many more, some of which are patented.
Easy to install and easily manageable base stations are Sloka's another differentiator. Unlike its competitors, the company's base stations come as all-outdoor units. This allows an operator to install them on the tower itself - with the antenna or close to the antenna thus reducing operator capital expenditure (capex) on paraphernalia - such as air conditioner units, long RF cables, housing, by up to 50 percent. Sloka's base stations are powered over Ethernet cable itself, allowing an operator to manage the connectivity with one cable thus saving cost and adding convenience.
Indeed, it's an inspiring tale to hear how Sloka got where it is today. There was a point of time when founder of Sloka, Sujai Karampuri ran out of cash to run his operations for about one year. He went back to his brother, mother, father, and his uncle who helped him with their savings and possessions just to keep the show on. Also, Karampuri approached more than six VCs requesting them to fund his venture, but to no avail.
Karampuri wanted about $6 million for his venture. But an investor who finally agreed to fund wanted Karampuri to slash the budget. After many negotiations it came down to $3 million. Then to two, but surprisingly, Sloka team was able to develop its niche product within $1 million."That's where our strength lies.Cost effectiveness is our key differentiating factor.Now we started to run our operations by our own revenues," notes Sujai Karampuri.
Sloka faced the obvious challenges boldly since its inception. Sloka Telecom made its first deployment to power France's first 5.8MHz WiMax network in the town of Saint Medard en Jalles. Incidentally, it was the first WiMAX base station in France, and for the Sloka team it was an amazing success.
Today Sloka competes with stalwarts like Alvarion, Aperto, Axxcelera, Redline, and Telsima. Saint Medard en Jalles city municipality in France and a major wireless company in Canada are the key customers of Sloka. Today to strengthen its foothold in India, it is in talks with some of the Indian operators as well. Also Sloka plans to remain as an OEM in future.The company is keen on more aggressive direct sale of its equipments to operators, service providers, and wireless ISPs.
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Technology Partner |
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Platinum Sponsor |
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Broadband Partner |
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