New Delhi: It is 30 times faster than the much-touted 3G or third generation mobile technology. It is 100 times faster than the wireless data rates offered by today's cellular solutions in India. And it may be the "agni astra" to solve the "last mile" connectivity problems that have created a huge divide between the urban and rural access to Internet.

WiMax — the faster, longer range version of WiFi (the technology to wirelessly access the Net) — might just turn out to be something that will allow India to to harness broadband for its objectives. This was the message sent out at the one-day Indian Wireless Broadband summit held here on Monday.

Price factor

Government and industry were in rare agreement that WiMax was the way to go — if the hardware was available at an affordable price. J.S. Sarma, Telecom Commission Chairman Telecommunications Secretary, said Wimax could build on the huge base of copper-wire and fibre-optic connectivity available with BSNL and extend its reach to inaccessible areas by using wireless for the "last mile."

Leading Indian providers — Sify, Reliance and Tata/VSNL — expressed their readiness to deploy WiMax as soon as spectrum and regulatory issues were in place.

But they felt the solution would first emerge in the fixed personal computer arena before being adopted for mobile platforms.

Alok Sharma, chief executive of Telsima Communications, the first Indian company to provide solutions in the broadband wireless arena, said India, with its huge installed base of cable TV subscribers, was a potential market for the WiMax technology.

But there was need to set up solar-power backed base stations to penetrate the hinterland. The summit was co-sponsored by Beceem Communications, a U.S. and India-based start-up that has become a key player in developing hardware to exploit the WiMax technology.

The company's Bangalore centre has created the world's first chipsets for mobile WiMax platforms, which are expected to roll out commercially within months.

It has also been instrumental in helping to create the technical standard — 802.16e — that underpins WiMax.

Arogyaswami Paulraj, co-founder and chief technology officer of Beceem, told The Hindu that India could emerge as a world leader in WiMax technology. By deploying it rapidly, India could also become a global showcase in the use of broadband for meaningful national goals.

23 patents

Dr. Paulraj, a formal Naval officer, led the team that in the 1980s developed India's first anti-submarine system, APSOH (Advanced Panaromic Sonar-Hull-mounted), which is still used by the Navy.

In Stanford University, U.S., since 1993, he heads the Smart Antennas group and is considered an international authority on the subject with 23 patents.

In 2003, Prof. Paulraj co-founded Beceem and has quickly put India on the map as a cutting edge provider of WiMax technology.

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