Bangalore: Cisco Systems Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, announced on May 15 that it has cleared a key regulatory hurdle in India and is now able to provide VoIP (Voice over IP) technologies and solutions to service providers in the country.

Shortly after the legalisation of VoIP in India on April 1, the Telecommunications Engineering Centre (TEC) of India approved Cisco's products for use in the country, a company release said.

Market research firm, IDC Asia Pacific, estimates VolP services in India to be worth $ 2.8 billion by 2005, which will make it the second biggest VolP market in the region behind China. IDC expects revenues from VolP from the whole of Asia Pacific to be $ 13.8 billion.

"The entry of Cisco VoIP solutions into the market will provide the much-needed impetus to VoIP adoption by service providers in India. This is because Cisco's solutions are the first to support all three signalling schemes that are prevalent in the country," said S V Ramana, Vice-President, Systems Engineering, Cisco Systems India and SAARC.

PTI