Learning to Conform

For a technology that promised to shake up the world, the

currently proposed avatars of WiMax are a toned down version of the initially

hyped demon. Most speakers at the conference on WiMax-Technology for Mobile

Broadband & Mobile VoIP Services-came out with the view that WiMax is not

likely to be the disruptive technology that it was hyped to be. It is more

likely to complement the existing 2G/3G systems that are likely to be around for

a while.

Dr Arogyaswami Paulraj clarified formally that WiMax is not

really a technology; it is a standard, albeit a new one, based on some pretty

old technologies like MIMO, OFDM, and opportunistic scheduling.

Various speakers at the conference brought out the cost

advantages of the WiMax technology by pointing out that the immense capacities

that the technology provides can spawn unique business models.

Protip Ghose, VP, Sales and Marketing, Telsima held out another

promise for the application developers in India. He said, India could take the

lead in WiMax, something it does not have in 2G/3G technologies, and

applications developed here would have applications in many other markets that

are in the growing stage.

Tarvinder Singh, head, Marketing & Product Management,

Motorola India Networks & Enterprise also spoke of WiMax helping India

leapfrog the wireline technologies and lead the broadband revolution.

Abhay Savargaonkar, VP, 3G, Bharti Airtel spoke about WiMax

playing a complementary role to the existing technologies and that it was

entirely possible for the two to coexist, till the time that all technologies

converge into the all IP core technologies or the 4G technologies. For starters,

WiMax is likely to develop in islands, and as its adoption grows,

larger/contiguous or even pan-India networks can bee looked at.

Spectrum remained the contentious issue, even before it is

launched. To begin with, there is no global harmonization effort for its

spectrum now. The favored spectrum is 2.5 GHz, and deployments have started in

that band. However, In India, the bands allocated are 3.3GHz and 3.5 GHz.

The bottleneck, despite all the eloquent business models

proposed at the conference, remains the technology itself. The technology,

however, grew organically to reach the masses in an affordable manner. We can

surely hope that a technology that starts out with the promise of reaching the

masses, will achieve that in a much shorter timeframe.

Alok Singh



aloksi@cybermedia.co.in