On the Wings of Profit

But more importantly, the UC network introduced the airport to a space saving mechanism it desperately needed. With one of the highest property costs in the world, the space that every additional check-in counter ate up hurt.

"[This airport] is right in the heart of the city of Mumbai. Space has always been a constraint because it is an island," says Reddy.

The common check-in counters -- referred to as Common Use Terminal Equipments or CUTE -- will go a long way in helping solve this space crunch. UC's single communication platform allows any airline to use any counter -- not a fixed counter like airlines are traditionally used to. By just logging into the network, an airline's check-in staff can access the various devices that they normally used. So, no matter which counter they use, their telephone extension, for example, follows them. Without UC, airline counters could not be used inter-changeably, which meant that every airline needed three or four counters to itself -- necessitating large amounts of valuable airport space.

Crucially, the UC-enabled CUTE system also enabled airports to expand the number of counters an airline used to meet sudden surges in passenger traffic, since empty counters could be deployed quickly. This helps reduce the crowd in a pre-check in holding area.

The network can also support Common Use Self Service (CUSS) kiosks for passengers who would like to check-in themselves. On the airline staff front, employees could employ VoIP for their use -- an area that was targeted for revenue generation.

In addition, the network will leverage advanced UC communication services like SIP-based presence, IM, collaboration, conferencing and messaging and RoIP (radio over IP).

MIAL also plans to use the network to create revenue in different ways. These include passenger processing services, telephonic services (including VoIP), data services and data center services, which are all given out on rent to airlines. Since the airport is a network provider, all ports are charged. So, if an airline wants to take a port, they are not allowed to do their own cabling, but can plug into a port for a monthly rental. For passenger processing, MIAL has a concession agreement with Sita, where Sita maintains operations, invests capital, and offers to tie up with all airlines. Sita then pays a fee to MIAL. "Our target is to make more than Rs 15 crore [US$3.5 million] in 2009-10," says Anantheswaran, "Currently, the airport spends around 1.5 per cent of its revenues on IT. By offering new services to external users (airlines and travelers) the airport wants to bring this down to zero, and create a self-sustained IT organization."

If the figures add up, the logic that these services could turn MIAL's IT department into a self-sustaining business enterprise -- putting MIAL on the same platform as a Bharti Airtel -- could work.

But if you want to play Bharti, you have to deal with Bharti's problems, one of which was ensuring uptime with redundancy. MIAL's technology backbone took care of that. "Every fiber backbone has a dual route: from a data center to each hub room there are two fiber routes. This ensures that if one cable is damaged, the second route is taken up automatically within 15 milliseconds, unlike traditional technology, which takes between two and three seconds. If a user is in the middle of a telephone call, he or she will not even realize a fiber has been cut," Anantheswaran says.

Another problem that came with being a service provider was the size of infrastructure. The hub rooms, which distribute cables to every VoIP phone, data port, check-in counter etcetera, were 50 meters in radius -- and MIAL had 16 of them. Sparing huge amounts of space for data center and the hub rooms, was a daunting idea. "Unless we clearly show revenues coming out of the space we were taking up, it is going to be very difficult to justify the move," says Anantheswaran.

And that wasn't where the costs ended.