Electronics Weekly puts its questions to an industry figure: Mike Surrey, director of business development at Telent

What technologies are having the biggest impact on the communications services business?
The convergence of IT and Internet Protocol technologies continue to impact the telecoms and IT industries as a whole, including services. Every year more traffic is carried on radio access networks and the emergence of WiFi and WiMAX is changing how networks are designed and deployed. Consumers are accessing networks with devices working on multiple protocols. The world of integrated and wireless distribution of voice, data and video is already upon us, and will certainly impact demand for services in the markets we operate in.

Does Telent conduct any research work?  If yes, into what?
As a vendor agnostic technology services provider, Telent invests time and resource in maintaining an in-depth understanding of the various communications solutions available. Not only do we know what new technology is being brought to market, but also we ensure that our field force of engineers is trained in the installation and maintenance of that equipment. We are accrediting our engineers with major suppliers such as Cisco.

Can you outline the type of engineers you employ now, how many and the sort of work they do?
We employ approximately 1,500 network engineers, technology consultants and project managers, dispersed around the UK and Germany to provide national coverage. Our engineers are trained to perform network planning and design, installation and commissioning, support and maintenance and logistics support activities within customer networks. Our customers include BT, Ericsson, Metropolitan Police, Tubelines, Merseyside Fire Services, the UK Highways Agency and EADS among others.

After spinning out of Marconi, Telent services other people’s products. Will there ever be any Telent products?
In the strictest sense, Telent does not plan to produce network equipment, although we still maintain the System X IPR and supply equipment to existing customers. Our customers often require software solutions; for example, the need to draw meaningful data from their network and to control the peripherals that the network connects. Our MICA (Management, Integration and Control of Assets) technology, which has been developed to manage security and passenger information subsystems in metro stations, has been developed to meet this need.

What will drive Telent to expand?
We have retained key customers in both our telecoms and enterprise divisions and have won high profile contracts with Deutsche Bahn, COLT, Cable & Wireless, Easynet and the Highways Agency for example. We are aiming to accelerate growth by broadening our services offering and moving into closely adjacent markets. I believe that being an independent services company strengthens our future prospects, and that the markets we operate in today offer ample opportunity for growth.

See also: Electronics Weekly's roundup of content related to WiMAX and wireless networking.