The Hindu Business Line : India racing ahead in WiMAX

Speaking at the launch of a reference design for a consumer premise equipment (CPE) box (one which will enable a home to get hooked onto the WiMAX network) in collaboration with Freescale Semiconductors and Celestica, Mr Vijay Dube, Vice-President, Marketing and Business Development, Wavesat, said, "India will leapfrog other countries in offering wireless broadband Internet to rural areas."

While other countries are still hooked onto wires, the country has an opportunity to go wireless from the start, and skip the intermediate steps. "It is not viable to lay cable everywhere. Rural broadband access is definitely a better option," he said.

The Government, research firms such as C-DOT and various operators have realised this truth and are conducting WiMAX pilots across the country. Rural India, especially, has a chance to leapfrog generations and log on to the Internet at a speed of 25 MBps or more (WiMAX offers high-speed Internet access from enabled laptops and PCs) right from the beginning.

Trio plan

Based on Wavesat's WiMAX Mini-PCI module and MAC software, Freescale's MPC8323E PowerQUICC II Pro processor and Celestica's WiMAX gateway CEP solution accelerator, this board offers both WiMAX and WiFi connectivity in a single CPE box.

The trio plan to unleash a whole range of such WiMAX CPEs with different options of Ethernet ports. Celestica has a manufacturing facility for electronic devices at Hyderabad and is ready to take on the market, said Mr Vis Gowtham, Managing Director, Celestica India.

A CPE with four Ethernet ports to directly connect to the WiMAX network, and a Wifi transmitter that will enable the rest of the office to also log on, will be appropriate for an office of 8-10 employees. The end product will look like a set top box, priced around Rs 5,000 and will be available from third party providers by late 2007.

Futuristic WiMAX

Wavesat is working to size down the CPE from 60x80 mm to 60x50mm (called the MiniPCI size - the size of current Wifi connectivity cards), which will also bring down the costs by one-third. Next is the laptop CPE based on its Shark processor, which will fit into the PCMCIA slot that is currently being used for data cards. This will be available in the third quarter of next year, said Mr Dube.