Intel plans to start WiMax trials in the next few months in several cities across India including in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Pune, the Daily News & Analysis reports. “We are also having a dozen trial discussions for the implementation of WiMax networks in India,” Ramamurthy Sivakumar, Intel’s Managing Director for South Asia, told the newspaper.
According to a report by research firms Maravedis and Tonse Telecom India will have 13 million WiMAX subscribers by 2012. “More than 70 per cent of Indian households do not have access to fixed wired telephone services,” said Adlane Fellah, senior analyst, Maravedis in a press release late June. “Instead, customers have flocked to cellular phone carriers, which have built a tremendous infrastructure to provide service to more than 10 crore (100 million) customers.” (Press Release PDF)
French technology major Alcatel has already set up a research and development center in the southern Indian state of Chennai to develop Wi-Max technology
But a disagreement between India’s CDMA and GSM operators may lead to delays in the launch of Wi-Max in the country, The Hindu Business Line reported late last month. The CDMA camp has mooted allocation of spectrum in the 2.5 Ghz band for Wi-Max services but the GSM camp has opposed the move.
In their response to a consultation paper on 3G and Wi-Max services put out by India’s telecom regulator, CDMA operators including Reliance Communication said that the 2.5-2.69 Ghz band should be allocated for Wi-Max services so that more numbers of operators can offer services. (The Government is banking on Wi-Max for broadband penetration.)
The GSM operators however say that 2.5-2.69 Ghz band should not be used for Wi-Max but should be left for third generation technology such as WCDMA. Interestingly, the CDMA Development Group, the international body promoting CDMA technology, has subscribed to India’s GSM operators’ views, says the newspaper.
Intel and Alcatel, which are investing heavily in developing Wi-Max technology, support the CDMA operators’ views. Equipment vendors like Nokia and Ericsson, which have a very strong 3G-technology portfolio, support the GSM operators’ views.
The forecast of 13M users by 2012 is so useless.
Be careful to distinguish between CDMA operators and WCDMA as a wireless technology. As explained in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMTS), and supported by my Nokia N Series device manuals, WCDMA forms the foundation (“air interface”) for the GSM operators’ 3G UMTS service. This explains why GSM operators support WCDMA.
It is better to use the term UMTS for GSM evolution to 3G that relies on WCDMA. HSPDA/HSPUA are just further enhancements to UMTS. It is worth noting that IPWireless’ TD-UMTS technology is actually based on the same UMTS standard, although incompatible with the FD-UMTS being deployed around the world. IPWireless already supports the 2.6 GHz band in question.
its fine we got a very high thorouput wimax tech but the problem is that its a double trouble for the service providers i.e iptv and wimax rights..
interigation of all technology platforms
i.e cdma based or wimax or any other type
and deploying them ,let the marketforce
decide which is efficient in terms of cost&
performance because market force always bring the best out of the rest for a country like
india which is huge in terms size of population
always believe in quality + affordability
where only the fittest technology or product or
companies can survive
I think Wimax would be the best in some metropolitan cities where it may be highly used. Its a good news that Intel is going to try for Wimax technology in India. Hope all the service providers will avail of this amazing technology. Thanks for the knowledgeable blog.