She says that New Zealand and Australia are no different from the rest of the world -- both have a large baby-boomer population, which means big health care costs looming. One way to keep healthcare costs down is to manage them as much as possible through e-health, according to Mine.

Besides continuing to develop the carrier market in New Zealand, Alcatel focuses on vertical markets such as health care, as well as defense and public safety.

Among the company's other customers in New Zealand are Vodafone, TelstraClear and BCL. Customers in the Asia-Pacific region include Chinese Telecom and the Chinese Government, PT Indonesia, Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) and Telecom Taiwan.

"If you are going to be a global player in this market long term, you have to be able to compete all around the globe," says Mine.