WiMAX for broadband India

NEW DELHI, INDIA: In a bid to extend computing power and connectivity to tertiary towns and hinterland in the country, Union Minister of Communications and IT, Government of India, A. Raja today announced the introduction of WiMax embedded laptop computers.

He made this announcement while inaugurating the global WiMax Exposition cum conference in New Delhi on Tuesday, organized by WiMax Forum in association with ASSOCHAM. 

The laptops with Intel chips inside from computer manufacturers like LENOVO and ASUS are expected to stimulate the growth of wireless Broadband in India at a much faster pace. 

The Minister hoped that wireless broadband and possibly WiMax would meet the needs of BPO Industry, IT outsourcing Industry, BFSI segment, Education, Tourism Travel and Hospitality industries, who have been demanding high speed internet services capability and “Anywhere” internet capability, once the WiMax networks are rolled out.

The two-day conference is designed with the aim of transforming narrowband India to broadband India with WiMAX technology as well as to enable the country to meet its viable target of 20 million broadband connections nationwide by 2010.

WiMAX Forum also announced its plans for the first India-based applications lab at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, after Taiwan and the US.

Created with the backing of the Indian industry and Department of Telecommunications (DoT), this lab will focus on enhancing WiMAX quality of experience and WiMAX community services for underserved areas.

IIT Delhi already has active programs examining IT community services, including telemedicine, distance learning and e-government. These applications are of particular interest to the Indian market, and will be explored more fully through the creation of this lab.

“WiMAX is a powerful technology that is available today to provide Indian-society centric applications like telemedicine, distance education, e-governance for urban, suburban, and rural development,” said Ron Resnick, President of WiMAX Forum.

The WiMAX Forum also expects to have a comprehensive global roaming plan available to operators in early 2009. It forecasts that by 2012 the Indian market will support 27.5 million WiMAX users representing approximately 20 per cent of the global WiMAX user base.

“We have about 40 million PCs, laptops, notebooks but the country is hoping to have rightly about 85 million by 2012. The silicon majors like Intel will add more laptops and computers at more comfortable and affordable rates,” said C S Rao, chairman, WiMAX Forum India chapter.

He said the broadband penetration being low, the opportunity for operators to gain large numbers of subscribers through WiMAX is incredible.

Resnick praised India’s decision to allocate and auction WiMAX spectrum to the 2.3 and 2.5 GHz frequency bands, with the goal of connecting over one billion new customers.

“India currently has only 4.5 million broadband users out of a population of 1.2 billion people. And with these recent regulatory decisions, India joins other major developed nations such as the US, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Russia in freeing up prime spectrum for mobile WiMAX deployments,” he said.

WiMAX Forum predicts that widespread access to broadband will greatly increase economic productivity by laying the groundwork for important initiatives, such as distance learning, telemedicine and e-governance.

“This forum and the exhibition will give great opportunity for all of us to upgrade ourselves. Telecom industry is a huge industry and will continue to achieve the next era of broadband and wireless broadband,” said Prithviraj Chavan, Minister of State in PMO and PP, Government of India.

More than 25 exhibitors, including Intel Corporation, Lenovo, Motorola, Alvarion, Samsung, Alcatel Lucent, Huawei, CISCO, Nokia Siemens Networks, Beceem, Telsima L&T, ASUS and Gemtek are participating in the exhibition organized as part of the conference.