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Indian Broadband Wireless Pace Accelerates

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Feature Article Indian Broadband Wireless Pace Accelerates Caroline Gabriel Research Director Rethink Research Associates Editor of WiMAX Watch India has one of the most urgent requirements in the world for broadband wireless and, especially since its change of government earlier this year, one of the most ambitious plans to address it. This is opening up the prospect of massive build-outs over the next few years, and ones where WiMAX, rather than 3G, is starting as the lead contender to deliver the goods. The government has committed itself to broadband wireless, both to bring access to the country’s massive rural regions and to “leapfrog 3G”, as the minister for telecoms and IT, Dayanidhi Maran, puts it. Maran believes that 3G equipment and services are too expensive for connecting such huge areas of sparse population. "The 3G standard has been evolved, but has not proved cost effective," he said on taking office. "I therefore plan to leapfrog this generation and develop 4G technology” (by which he meant broadband wireless, he later explained). This week, two major Indian operators, Reliance Infocomm and BSNL, have confirmed their interest in rolling out WiMAX, especially in the vast areas where there is no legacy cellular network and where terrain does not allow for cable or fiber. State-owned BSNL is testing a metro area pre-WiMAX system from a consortium called Sting Broadband, and has announced plans to roll out WiMAX and Wi-Fi services in 10 major cities, including Hyderabad, Pune, Ahemdabad and Bangalore. It will soon issue a tender for WiMAX base systems and customer equipment worth INR100m and looks to have an initial network running in six to nine months. It will build 400-500 Wi-Fi hotspots, in the first phase, at public locations such as airports, hotels, universities and hospitals, and will use WiMAX for backhaul and for some last mile services, complementing its existing fixed, mobile and internet services across India. Reliance Infocomm, which joined the WiMAX Forum earlier this year, is testing pre-standard mobile 802.16e. Intel, which has been lobbying hard in India for the adoption of WiMAX, is understood to be supporting the Reliance trials. Reliance is tipped to be first to move towards a national mobile broadband wireless network, probably from 2006, and possibly with government backing. However, more localized projects are already gathering pace, encouraged by the authorities, which threatened this month to crack down on telcos that are failing to bring broadband services to rural communities. The Indian state of Mallapuram is claiming the world’s biggest rural wireless network, built around Wi-Fi hotspots and kiosks, backhauled by WiMAX-ready gear from Wi-Lan. There are 550 kiosks so far, over a range of 3,500 square kilometers, offering internet access, voice over IP and videoconferencing to businesses, state offices and individuals. The backbone was installed by Indian integrator Tulip IT, using the Wi-Lan equipment alongside Cisco routers and Airspan Wi-Fi kit. Wi-Lan is also the main vendor in a Gujurat state government project, looking to increase productivity and the competitiveness of the whole region with a pre-WiMAX network providing voice, video and data links between agencies such as courts and hospitals as well as government offices. The network is costing $500,000 in Wi-Lan equipment and the company says it will be upgradeable to WiMAX, which will enable it to support more users with higher performance base stations for the same price. In June, US provider WebSky created a joint venture with Worldwide Wireless India (WWWI) to design, build and run a network that could address 75m people. WebSky will provide the funding and will construct the system while WWWI will contribute its licensed frequencies in 3.5GHz spectrum, which cover nine large cities, including Mumbai (Bombay), Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai (Madras), Bangalore and Hyderabad. The first build-out will occur in the city of Ludhiana, in the Punjab. The partners will jointly operate the network and share the revenues. "India is the ideal market for a broadband wireless system," said Haffer. "The country has an excellent fiber optic grid which will facilitate the development of our project and its relative lack of readily available broadband services to a large segment of the potential market provides a vast untapped and underserved core of possible subscribers." Note: India’s fixed telecom infrastructure reaches only 33 per 100,000 people and there are only 3.7m lines in rural areas. Just 55% of villages have any telephone, while 77% of internet access is in 25 state capitals, and 200 cities account for more than 98% of this. There are about 50,000 villages in India which do not have telephone facility. The government target is to connect them within a year. Analysts believe the Indian mobile subscriber base will reach 140m by 2008. This could prove a significant underestimate if WiMAX is brought into the equation on a major scale. About the Author: Caroline Gabriel is Research Director of Rethink Research Associates and Editor of WiMAX Watch, a newsletter providing in-depth analysis of the WiMAX market. She is a featured columnist for Trendsmedia's WiMAX Trends, and is a leading industry analyst on wireless and wireless broadband technologies. She recently authored WiMAX Business Models 2004-2007: How to Make Money in WiMAX, published in the US/Canada by Trendsmedia. For further information, email [e-mail] Copyright © 2004 by Rethink Research. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without consent.