WiMax Rolls Out … With A Whimper?
WiMax, generally considered to be Wi-Fi on steroids since it can provide broadband wireless access (BWA) up to 30 miles (50 km) for fixed stations, and 3-10 miles (5-15 km) for mobile stations, compared to the 100-300 feet for Wi-fi/802.11, is making its presence felt in India, albeit with a whimper as this article states.
Major telecom operators like Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices may have begun their Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access or WiMAX rollouts, but the results are yet to show in full measure.
Tata Teleservices for instance, deployed its first WiMAX network in Bangalore in March, expecting to gather a subscriber base of about 2 lakh by the end of the year, but has managed just about 7,000 so far. I find this surprising - I would tend to think that it should have quite a few takers.
Reliance WiMAX is also operational at a few places in India - including Bangalore and Pune, and is looking at a large-scale deployment in the next year.
India’s leading telecom operator, Bharti Airtel, too plans to roll out WiMAX services across 300 towns.
Analysts, however, are skeptical of this growth. Gartner, for instance, predicts that India will have 6.9 million mobile and fixed WiMAX connections by end 2011, and cautions that India will remain a niche market for this technology until 2009. Moreover, Gartner does not expect mobile WiMAX rollouts to be available at larger scales before 2009, at the earliest.
Meanwhile, according to this article, BSNL has sought an exemption from the fees, as it plans to provide these services largely in rural India.