India's state-owned BSNL has chosen SOMA to deploy the industry's largest mobile WiMax network across three of India's fastest-growing telecom circles; Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa, and Andhra Pradesh. The deal will provide broadband data services to an area covering more than 200 mn people.

Notably, Prateek Pashine, COO of the Tata Communications retail broadband unit, has joined the WiMax forum as a director. Tata communications is betting big on WiMax, and will encourage development of low cost WiMAX products.

Outlook
In India, allocation of spectrum is a major issue that is of concern to the future of wireless-be it WiMax or 3G. So far, the government has failed to provide any kind of roadmap to operators. Futhermore, in the current bleak environment, global capex cuts and lack of credit to finance new operators are major threats to the development of the WiMax market.

In 2008, more than fifty mobile WiMax certified products achieved certification from the WiMax Forum. The Forum estimates that by 2011, there will be more than 1,000 mobile WiMax Forum Certified products across the world.

Currently, majority of mobile operators are considering high capacity point-to-point microwave links and relay for backhaul. Also, the industry has witnessed a growing amount of interest in subsidizing femtocells, as a way to reduce backhaul costs.

WiMax as a technology is proven for its average subscriber throughput of 1mbps with average loading of 600 subscribers per base station. Also, WiMax is an all-IP technology; easy to install, easy to commission and easy to integrate into the existing optical network and the core MPLS router platforms which are already operational.

Also, there are some serious sets of challenges such as the recent and continuing emergence of standards around WiMaxE dependence on vendor-specific protocol variations for key functions such as charging, lack of clear specifications for inter-operator roaming and inability to interoperate with GSM and CDMA networks through standards-based interfaces.

In India, the top twelve states and the seventy five major cities contribute about 80% of Internet subscriber services which are basically driven by the PC (desktop and laptop) install base and smartphones. Also, these seventy five cities in the top twelve states have maximum fibre coverage and international Internet bandwidth availability.

In the next few years, operators like BSNL/MTNL, Reliance, Bharti, Tata, Aircel, etc., who have maximum installed base of towers and optical fibre, would naturally roll out broadband services on WiMax.

However, there are some issues like the scarcity of radio frequency spectrum, which is adding to the complexity and complication involved in accommodating new technologies. The government is working towards accommodating new wireless technologies with adequate protection to existing operations.

At present, availability of spectrum is holding up large WiMax deployments in India. Though DoT has made significant progress and has worked very hard to establish a good policy to fulfill the growing demand for broadband, till date the overall results have not been very impressive. The auction process is expected to take place later this year, and is expected to kick start the era of large scale broadband incursion in India.

In another noteworthy development, ECI Telecom and TTSL partnered to deliver India's largest fixed broadband access network with supporting speed of up to 18 Mbps. At present, this end-to-end broadband access solution for TTSL's 'Photon Pro' network has already been successfully deployed across eight cities, namely Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Surat, and Baroda.

With 3G and BWA auction on the cards, the next few years are expected to witness a lot of exciting opportunities for the broadband market. However, the key issues that are affecting the growth of broadband in the country are un-bundling of local loop in wired broadband access and wireless backhaul (WiMax). Also, availability of compelling regional content and computer illiteracy among the masses are acting as major roadblocks for the industry. Until these issues are addressed, increasing the broadband penetration level in the country will be an uphill task.

As per VOICE&DATA research, India can still achieve its ambitious target of 20 mn broadband subscribers by 2010, provided all the developments related to 3G and WiMax, and rollout plans of operators take place in an apropos period.

It is only by offering services and products that add value to the broadband customer that there will be growth in usage. Airtel will continue on its strategy of enhancing broadband and will offer innovative products and services to its customers.

In the next few years, broadband and high-speed wireless penetration will continue to increase, as will the growth of new applications that could exploit these higher speeds. Further, services that depend on high quality broadband infrastructure include e-health, e-education, e-business, digital media, e-government, smart utility meter reading, etc.

Growing usage of broadband/Internet by educational institutions is one more trend that has caught up in the past few years. A lot of schools and colleges have adopted ICT as a means to differentiate and appeal to the growing tech-savvy parents and students.

Women, largely seen as homemakers, are the silently growing market segment. They are being more enterprising and entrepreneurial in their approach. Working from home, women have been doing online trading, freelancing, etc. They definitely are a major segment that need to be tapped, and India has a huge potential in this regard.

While global recession did affect the Indian businesses, there is lot to cheer about the prospects of broadband adoption. During the slowdown, many corporates understood the importance of online communications through videoconferencing and VoIP. Blogging, networking sites, music, video and film downloads are other segments attributed to youngsters that will drive broadband usage in India.

Jatinder Singh
jatinders@cybermedia.co.in