The Hindu Business Line : Dax Networks plans wireless highway

We have conceptualised this project keeping in mind the software professional who boards the office cab/bus with a laptop and has a one-hour journey ahead to the campus located in the outskirts

Bangalore , Sept. 15

The first wireless highway is now being planned in the country.

Dax Networks, a provider of routers, switches, cabling and other networking products, proposes to offer Internet connectivity to travellers on the IT corridor.

"We have conceptualised this project keeping in mind the software professional who boards the office cab/bus with a laptop and has a one-hour journey ahead to the campus located in the outskirts," said Mr K. Surendar, Country Manager, Dax Networks, speaking on the sidelines of a product launch.

The IT corridor is a 22-kilometre stretch of Old Mahabalipuram Road. A reported 80,000 vehicles enter Old Mahabalipuram Road every day, a majority heading to IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies located on the corridor.

These companies include Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Polaris, Cognizant and Xansa.

Betting on WiMAX

The company is waiting for WiMAX to be commercially deployed (which would take another 7 months) before deciding on using it for the project. WiMAX, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is one of the newer wireless technologies that would allow users to access broadband from anywhere in a city. It has a range of 50 km and offers a bandwidth of 2 MBps (scalable up to 75 MBps).

"Other alternative technologies are also being considered," said Ms Subashini Prabhakar, Chief Technology Manager, Dax Networks.

Dax has not yet approached the Government and is currently in talks with system integrators and tech `owners'. Declining to put a timeline on the project, Mr Surendar said it was still in very early stage.

The firm is working on research on the idea, as there are feasibility related issues. The company was also involved in unwiring the Dal Lake in Srinagar in 2003.

Dax introduced intelligent patch cords for easier networking.

Called PatchSee cords, these carry optical fibres along with the data handling copper fibre. By plugging the Patchlight, a sort of torch, the network administrator can identify the other end of any cord.

The cords also come with removable colour clips, to implement a colour coding system.

According to Mr Deepak Mirza, Director, Dax Networks, for a 1000-node network, implementation of PatchSee cords would take four hours and cost Rs 6 lakh.

The price of PatchSee CAT5e standard cords ranges from Rs 650 to Rs 850 while PatchSee CAT6 from Rs 975 to Rs 1,250.

10G

Dax also plans to introduce 10G (or 10GBASE-T is used for enterprise network cabling) cables by the end of this year. Other products on the anvil include high-end network products for core networks: routers, switches and wireless 802.11a products.

Dax Networks is a Rs 80.59-crore firm and part of Apcom group.

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