The Hindu : Business : Dishnet to launch WiMax services

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 02, 2005

Business

Business

Dishnet to launch WiMax services

By Anand Parthasarathy

BANGALORE, APRIL 1. Dishnet, the Chennai-based Internet service provider, is just 60 days away from launching wide area broadband wireless Net access across eight metros, making it the first mover in WiMax technology, the next ramp-up from today's WiFi.

In a special briefing for The Hindu today, V. G. Suri, Dishnet's Vice President (Sales and Marketing), explained that by this time next year, the company that pioneered Internet delivery via digital subscriber line (DSL) (it has since, handed this business to VSNL), planned to bring WiMax (otherwise known as 802.16) to 38 cities to around two lakh users, both corporate and individual.

Customers can choose from various access speed options ranging from an assured 128 kilo bits per second to one mega bits per second.

In fact, Mr. Suri added, Dishnet had already set up five WiMax base stations in Chennai and around 150 customers to its existing (WiFi) services were already experiencing the zippier WiMax speeds in a trial mode.

Of the four million-plus Internet connections in India, only around four lakhs were broadband — and Dishnet planned to target the remaining 36 lakhs who still used a dial-up connection by offering them the option to connect and remain always-on, wirelessly, at up to 20 times the speeds they were used to, at an affordable price. In fact entry level packages would start as low as Rs. 300, Mr. Suri said.

The company was simultaneously engaged in the task of creating 6,000 WiFi hotspots within 18 months.

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