BANGALORE, INDIA: Unifiedgateways is a provider of communication products and solutions for in-home and access networks. In this conversation, Ramesh Kumar M, founder and CEO of the company, talks about the possibility of broadband over powerline (BPL) in India and argues that WiFi is not a technology for India. Read on:

CIOL: How did it all begin for you at Unifiedgateways?

Ramesh Kumar: Unifiedgateways was incubated in IISc (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) in 1999-2000. It's a five-member-big product company. It all began with the idea that we should have no more than one cable attached to our televisions, no matter where we watch it from.

We tried WiFi during 1999-2000; however, it too failed because of bandwidth constrictions and issues such as that WiFi can't cross walls.

CIOL: However, today we have technologies such as beamforming from Ruckus or even Cisco, so signals don't get blocked because of walls...

Ramesh: I agree Ruckus works; however, at what price? You get an access point at a feasible price. However, in order to convert a non-WiFi board to a WiFi board is very expensive for any business.

CIOL: So when did you think powerline could be an alternative?

Ramesh: When we saw even WiFi did not deliver the way we actually thought it to be, we thought of going for the concept of data over powerline. However, back then the powerline technology was not very evolved and could cater to only three-four mbps.

So, a few years later, when powerline technology started giving a throughput of 14-85 mbps, we decided to take the plunge and came out with our first product, capable of 200 mbps data speed for both Ethernet and WiFi.

CIOL: Can you tell us more about your products?

Ramesh: Today, we hold a global patent for the concept of sending television signals over powerline. We have been trying it with various DTH providers. With our technology we can provide 10 times more definition than what is being provided today. Though Tata wasn't ready to believe us, we are still pursuing them.

We are also in talks with Airtel for the past one year. We have come across many digital signage TVs, which have a complete set of PCs and TVs.These PCs have a configuration of 340 GB HD, 3GB RAM, windows XP and cost Rs. 48,000. However, what it does is dumb job of converting Ethernet signals to TV compatible signals.

We also have a patent for another product, which railways can use for data transfer over 23kb line.

Railways need not lay additional fiber in order to go wireless. As of now, we are trying this product with both the Malaysian and Indian Railways, for about four-five kilo meters range.

We also have products with 500 mbps at one gigabit for both Ethernet and WiFi.

CIOL: Why Ethernet and WiFi, when you talk of powerline?

Ramesh: Powerline will co-exist with WiFi. Today, whichever device you take, whether it is a laptop or a PC, it is either going to be on a Cat 5 connection, i.e. Ethernet, or WiFi.

Today my customers want a WiFi connection as well. So, though we send data over powerline, we have to be compatible with existing systems. So we give powerline in and WiFi out.