WIMAX: Wireless Broadband Access throughout India by 2010!

There is no doubt that Indian Telecommunication Industry is currently growing at an unimaginable pace. Normally, growth of Internet subscribers is directly relative to growth of telecom subscribers. However in India, Internet penetration has not taken off, especially broadband Internet subscribers (less than 3 million).Interestingly, with more than 100% growth, more and more people are accessing Internet through their mobile phones. However, mobile internet too has its own limitations, including speed, cost and small screen browsing.

It is imperative that Broadband Internet in India takes off, as the future of Indian online startups depends on that.

As I have mentioned number of times earlier, the main reasons for low broadband subscribers are inadequate infrastructure, poor internet speeds and lack of easy access to broadband connections.

To overcome these problems, telecom and broadband companies in India are moving to new generation networks like WIMAX  that are expected to provide affordable broadband connections across India.

What is WIMAX?

WiMAX, the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a telecommunications technology aimed at providing wireless data over long distances in a variety of ways, from point-to-point links to full mobile cellular type access. It is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard, which is also called WirelessMAN. The name WiMAX was created by the WiMAX Forum, which was formed in June 2001 to promote conformance and interoperability of the standard. The forum describes WiMAX as “a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL.”

Simply put, WIMAX is a wireless technology that can transmit high bandwidths at long distances. This technology works quite similar to existing cellular network setup. WIMAX hotspots (similar to cellular towers) are setup at various locations that wirelessly transmit high bandwidth data into consumer homes.

Government of India announced at recent WIMAX Forum India summit that they are in favor of WIMAX technology in India and will push manufacturing of WIMAX equipment, bringing down the cost of equipment devices.

Globally, there are more than 400 WIMAX operators and in US, with some of the large cities having full wireless broadband coverage (in some cases internet access is completely free too).

Telecom companies and Government of India are looking at enabling high bandwidth Wireless Internet access throughout India by end of 2010. If it becomes a reality, India will be in the forefront of ongoing Worldwide Internet revolution.