The Hindu Business Line : DoT plans lab to certify WiMAX-based services

Herndon (Virginia), Nov. 19 IT majors including Wipro, TCS and L&T Infotech may be in race to partner the Department of Telecom’s technical wing Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC) to set up a WiMAX certification lab in India.

The lab will be the sixth in the world to offer testing services to vendors selling WiMAX-based broadband services. TEC had invited expression of interest from private players to set up the testing lab.

“The WiMAX certification lab shall be able to accept equipment offered by different vendors and test them for conformity, performance, functional and interoperability in accordance with WiMAX standards. The test schedules and procedures to be followed will be as specified by WiMAX Forum,” said a DoT official.

Joint ownership

The certification lab will be jointly owned by the Government, an Indian partner and an international testing firm.

The Indian partner, which will own up to 49 per cent stake in the lab, will detail total business plan indicating cost of and returns on the project. Once the joint venture is set up, the Indian partner would be responsible for day-to-day control and management of the Certification lab.

TEC will own 26 per cent while the foreign player will be given the balance. Foreign partner will be selected after the TEC finalises the agreement with the Indian company. The schedule and procedures for testing the WIMAX products and technological upgradation guidelines will also be provided by the WiMAX Forum.

Big market

India is expected to be one of the biggest market for WiMAX technology and a number of equipment and devices vendors are expected to bring their products here. These will have to be certified by the TEC before the vendors can start marketing it. According to industry estimates, there will be 20 million WiMAX-based data users over the next two to three years.

Companies such as Samsung, Nokia Siemens, Alcatel Lucent and ZTE are betting big on the uptake of WiMax in India. Since WiMAX is in initial stages of deployment globally, issues related to interoperability between equipment of vendors would have to be addressed.

Sprint Nextel, which is the only WiMAX operator in US, has its own lab in Herndon to check out inter-operability issues, is also willing to transfer its knowledge to new markets.

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