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Founded in 1999, Aperto Networks, developer of WiMAX base stations and subscriber units, has been a leader in broadband wireless space. The company was the cofounders of the WiMAX forum and of the WiMAX standard - the 802.16 standard.
Aperto is also a board member of the WiMAX forum and have customers in 65 countries, which are more than 200 service provider customers.
India is one of our key markets for the company with its largest customer being VSNL. In an interview with Pragati Simlote of CyberMedia News during Communicasia 2006, Aperto Networks president and CEO Mike Pratt and Aperto Networks marketing and alliances VP Manish Gupta who share the company’s plans for India as well the global trends in the WiMAX space.
What are the current global trends in WiMAX?
Mike Pratt: WiMAX adoption is just accelerating in all markets. The range of applications where it can be applied is also very huge. WiMAX is a very versatile technology and can serve everything from low-density residential application to very demanding enterprise customers.
On a global basis, it is growing very rapidly. We are seeing spectrum being allocated and freed up and designated for this particular application, much more discussion going on about future spectrum to be made available for WiMAX application. The broadband wireless phenomenon is just now beginning to pick up major momentum.
What are the advantages of WiMAX?
Pratt: WiMAX is a global phenomenon. The world today really is missing connectivity and worldwide there are just 200 million broadband subscribers. Wired connections just will not make it fast enough as it is too expensive and takes too long to do that.
WiMAX is cost effective and gives an option to service providers to serve residential customers as well as enterprise customers and the technology is mature. It is getting excitement and improving deployment around the world.
What are the benefits of WiMAX?
Manish Gupta: WiMAX is a technology that is proven. It is being deployed in many places and is now standardized.
Second benefit is cost. The cost of servicing an end user is much lower when you compare to fiber or DSL where there is no infrastructure today.
Third is time to market. So service provider don’t have to wait for three - four years to put in wires or cables and then offer services. With WiMAX they can get there in a matter of weeks. So it is very different.
Lastly service providers can also tier the services. Service providers can start with high end customers like the enterprises and then use the same infrastructure to layer in services for the low end residential market where the revenue maybe lower. So they can segment the market further in terms of profitability.
What is your presence in India?
Gupta: We have a strong presence in India and have sales, sales engineering team, customer support as well as a development center in India. We also have channel partners who help us sell and support our customers. Our development center is in Bangalore. The facility is doing work for global products and not just for India. Our plan is to have 35 people in this center by the end of the year.
What kind of WiMAX adoption is being seen in India? What are the impediments to WiMAX adoption here?
Gupta: In the Indian market, there are about a dozen service providers who are looking at WiMAX. There are statewide initiatives, government initiatives like Asia bowel that are aimed at leveraging WiMAX. So there are activities around WiMAX all over India. In Ahmedabad, there is a municipality, which is deploying WiMAX. In Bangalore there is a citywide deployment of WiMAX taking place.
VSNL is using our technology to service enterprise customers in 80 cities today and they plan to expand it to 200 cities in the next 12 months. BSNL has talked about rural marketplace that they are planning to launch.
Availability of spectrum is the only impediment in implementing WiMAX in India. Some service providers have the spectrum to provide WiMAX in India. WiMAX is operating primarily in 3.3-3.4 GHz band. But India is looking at opening up 3.4-3.6 GHz band also, which is a large spectrum and is looking quite possible. It is also exploring 2.3 GHz. We expect the 3.4-3.6 GHz band to open up in the next 12 months.
What is the growth Aperto is expecting in India?
Pratt: India is going to be one of the most important markets in WiMAX. The degree of broadband penetration is low and demand for connectivity is high in India. And of course, wireless technologies have the lowest cost and are easiest to deploy to get out to address that need. So it is going to be a huge market.
WiMAX adoption is growing at an exponential rate in India and we are looking at a multi fold growth in India over the next few years. It is one of the fastest growing markets for us and has the potential to be the single largest market for Aperto.
Who are your customers in India?
Pratt: VSNL is our largest customer in India. Today we have six service providers in different parts of India who are our customers. We have two additional service providers of the top five who will announce soon. Deployment will start soon. One of the customers will primarily focus on rural and residential market.
We work very closely with service providers directly but for implementation we bring in the right channel partners who have local people who can put up towers, etc. in India we have about six channel partners. Most are large global companies operating in India.
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