Tata plans invest $500-600M to deploy WiMax
By AZAM on March 4, 2008Tata plans invest $500-600M to deploy WiMaxTata Communications plans to connect 200,000 retail customers using WiMax by March 2009. The company plans to target both retail and enterprise customers; the company announced its plans to roll out WiMax in 110 cities for its enterprise customers and 15 cities for retail customers this year. The deployment will be one of the largest deployments of WiMax.
“Tata Communications’ seeks to enrich life by enabling reliable and affordable communication anytime, anywhere,” said Shankar Prasad, president of retail business unit at Tata Communications.
“WiMAX enables broadband services in a cost effective, decentralized manner in India where a majority of the country is not covered by wired infrastructure. The Indian broadband market, which today serves only 3.1 million customers in a nation with a population of over 1.2 billion, is forecast to grow significantly. The scale of unmet demand coupled with the emphasis on connectivity for education and the increasing ability to purchase Internet services will ensure that WiMAX broadband networks will thrive in this market” Shankar Prasad further added.
India has very low penetration of broadband Internet services. Currently India has 3.24 M broadband subscribers reported in Jan by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of Indi a. The paltry number stands small in comparison to the success enjoyed in the wireless telecom subscriber base. The industry reported 242M mobile subscribers in Jan and is adding subscribers at 8M a month.
Tata Communications aim to address the over 5,000 current customers in the enterprise and retail in ten cities to whom the company is planning to offering the service. The company announced that it has partnered and selected Telsima from Sunnyvale, California as a supplier of equipment for its WiMax deployment.
WiMax technology is suited best in emerging markets due to lack of build out of networks. WiMax can be seen as an alternative to mobile services such as 3G. Also, WiMax offers data speeds that are 10 to 30 times faster than 3G. WiMax could prove effective in addressing the Indian market and lead to faster growth in wireless broadband market.
The competition in India has also plans for investment in WiMax deployment in India
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) recently unveiled plans to spend $750 million on WiMax.
BSNL Plans $750M WiMax Splash, BSNL Deploys Aperto
Reliance Communications Ltd. (RCom) also a Telsima customer is also planning to deploy WiMax.
Categories : IndiaTags : RCom, Tata, Telisma, WiMax