Global telecom equipment vendor, Nortel Networks, which has so far outsourced R&D worth Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) from India over the past five years, is planning to increase its product research development work locally in the core areas of switching and enterprise voice.

"We have so far outsourced R&D in the core areas like switching, wireless, enterprise voice, call centre applications and wireline, worth Rs 1,000 crore over the last five years and it is going to increase in the same areas," Ravi Chauhan, vice president, India and Sarrc, enterprise solutions, Nortel Networks, told PTI on the sidelines of a function to launch its latest products in New Delhi.

Even though the company does not have an R&D centre of its own in India, it works with partners -- Infosys, Sasken and TCS -- where it carries out its development work. Nortel provides its own engineers to the partners for the R&D, he said.

"Our technology partners have delivered very good work. Though cost competitiveness is one of the factors, it is quality, availability of the talent, compatibilty with partners which has been responsible for our strong development base here," Chauhan said.

The company does some R&D outsourcing from China. But India is on a strong position on R&D outsourcing for Nortel.

As part of its strong India focus, Nortel announced the launch of ethernet LAN switches for the Indian market for the service-centric networks to carry voice, data and multimedia communications in a converged network.

The switches are BayStack 425, BayStack 5000, Passport 8300 and Passport 1600.