Given the abysmal reach of the Internet in rural areas, WiMAX
(Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) has been seen by
a host of players as the technology vehicle that can enable them to
make inroads into this relatively untapped market. Another reason
for WiMAX being viewed with eyes of optimism is due to the way
broadband access has been provided to consumers in India. Broadband
in India has been typically delivered using wires, and is fraught
with challenges such as taking huge number of permissions from
multiple authorities such as municipal corporations and housing
societies for laying down the fiber optic network. Even in areas,
where operators installed a fiber optic network, the volumes seldom
justified the price of creating the network. On the other end of
the spectrum is the unconnected India – which lives in
villages, has no access to wired lines, and accounts for over 70
percent of the population.
Hence, though the latent demand for Internet access is high; few
service providers have been able to match the demand with quality.
It is common to see several users complaining about the dismal
speeds or abrupt disconnections, on discussion boards on the
Internet. Not surprisingly, though the broadband subscriber base
has been growing at a fast clip, it is far less than the ambitious
target set by the broadband policy of 2004. The broadband
subscriber base, as of December 2008, stands at 5.45 million, and
falls way short of the target set by DoT, of achieving a base of 20
million broadband subscribers by 2010.
With WiMAX, telecom players see a sliver of hope to connect to
the rural population, and in turn, overcome the infrastructure
hurdles that are present in every city. WiMAX eliminates the need
for building a fiber optic network in rough terrain, or sparsely
populated areas – which make the business case for building a
fiber optic network difficult. With WiMAX, all the telecom
operators need is a base station, giving them the flexibility to
target niche pockets or regions, which are small if targeted
individually, but represent a huge customer base collectively. Says
Naresh Singh, Principal research analyst, Gartner, “India
needs a wireless technology to grow its broadband subscriber base.
In this context, WiMAX is a good option for a number of ISPs who do
not have another choice for last mile connectivity.”
As WiMAX is a scalable wireless access technology that can be
used effectively to bridge long distances with high data rates,
leading telecom carriers have showed intent, with some of these
players already making a start in building a WiMAX ecosystem. These
include major carriers such as BSNL, Tata Communications, Reliance
Communications, and Bharti Airtel.
The Government of India too realized the immense potential of
this technology in bridging the digital divide – as it made a
decision to allocate and auction WiMAX spectrum to the 2.3 and 2.5
GHz frequency bands. Buoyed by the government decision, the WiMAX
Forum predicted that the Indian WiMAX market including devices will
be worth $13 billion by 2012. The Forum has also said that it will
add an Indian certification lab to support certification of
products in this region. Private players such as Intel too
announced their plans to tap this promising market, by working with
the WiMAX forum to bring affordable low cost devices that would
help in increasing Internet access.
A spectrum of possibilities
With WiMAX, telecom
operators have the ability to roll out networks for providing
broadband access quickly, and make inroads into markets where it
has been commercially unviable due to the problem of last mile
connectivity. Agrees Neeraj Gulati, Managing Director, Ciena India,
“In India, last mile connectivity has always been a concern.
In fact, due to this fact, more than 70 per cent of Indian
households do not have access to fixed wired telephone services
(landlines). This means providing DSL to such households is an even
bigger problem. In this context, WiMAX is being examined as a means
to solve the challenge of last mile connectivity.”
The last mile connectivity problem is acute in rural areas, and
this is where WiMAX can play a significant role. Says Subashini
Prabhakar, CTM, Dax Networks, “Most places in India,
especially in the rural sector, lack the traditional telecom
backbone infrastructure. WiMAX networks in these places will be
preferred over traditional wired connectivity options.”
Besides speed of deployment, the initial costs of deploying a
WiMAX network make the technology suitable for addressing rural
markets. Says Dr Manoj Kanagalu, Senior Director, Wireless &
VoIP Solutions, Nortel Networks, “WiMAX is the lowest cost
per Mb solution for offering high bandwidth connectivity for
enterprises or customers over large geographic areas where there is
no existing fiber or DSL infrastructure.” Nortel has already
deployed WiMAX for providing connectivity for remote offices spread
across hilly terrains in North East India.
Adds Kiran Pande, President, ECI Telecom India, “WiMAX
technology enables providers to cater to underserved markets in
which the initial CAPEX requirements must be minimal, while still
enabling high data throughputs to the end-users. As WiMAX
technology is pure Ethernet, the associated costs for backhauling
and connectivity are typically much lower than for cellular or
wired networks.”
WiMAX can also be considered for providing redundancy.
“WiMAX can be a feasible option for providing backup for
wired networks in case of disasters,” says Ketan Parekh, the
CTO of Sharekhan. For example, in disasters caused by the Tsunami
in Indonesia, and Hurricane Katrina in the US, WiMAX was used
extensively to quickly provide communication links to areas, where
the communication infrastructure was destroyed.
Opening the door to a world of
applications
While at the basic level, WiMAX opens the
door of opportunities to tap underserved markets, it also gives
operators the flexibility, the speed and the bandwidth to provide
voice, video, data, and mobile services on the same platform. The
range of applications that can be powered using WiMAX is extensive
and this includes areas such as traffic monitoring, meter reading,
video surveillance, distance learning, conferencing,
transportation, and logistics management.
Further, applications such as IPTV which have been languishing
can now take off with the help of WiMAX. In the past, the high
amount of bandwidth required for video streaming services have
acted as an impediment, making DTH satellite and cables the
preferred mediums. Besides the ease and quickness of deployment,
WiMAX gives operators the capability to offer more services under a
common infrastructure. For example, with WiMAX, the service
provider has the capability to stream data speeds up to 10 Mbps,
making it possible to stream videos.
Boosting WiMAX
For WiMAX to be a success in
India, it has to position itself as a cost effective and
complementary technology to other technologies such as DSL.
Explains Ajay Kumar Dhir, Group CIO, JSL Limited, “Price
competitiveness will be a key catalyst for WiMAX adoption; hence
vendors have to ensure that the high CPE cost should not serve as
the deterrent to the adoption of technology. Finally, the most
powerful pricing proposition is service bundling. The more services
an operator is able to layer on its network, the more valuable will
be the network.” Pricing of spectrum is crucial, as high
tariffs will not be conducive for growth for a fledging
industry.
Like any other new technology, WiMAX will go through various
cycles of deployment, before it is finally accepted as a mainstream
and dependable technology. Says G Radhakrishna Pillai, Chief
Information Officer, Super Religare Laboratories, “To start
experiencing WiMAX, the first choice will be remote locations or
branch offices. Once we have confidence, the technology will move
to other offices too.”
In the price sensitive Indian market, ensuring the right price
will be difficult initially, especially if the volumes are small.
“To make WiMAX popular, it is important that the end
subscriber costs go down. This reduction in price can only happen
if economies of scale are achieved. Therefore, in summary, the
answer is that initially WiMAX for home users will go through its
maturity cycle and take about two or three years to replace DSL or
broadband connections,” says Akshay Garkel, Senior Consultant
Wireless Security. To achieve economies of scale, Garkel suggests
offering free or subsidized subscriptions for the first few months,
and by providing WiMAX hotspots for enabling people to experience
the technology.
Global players such as Alvarion, which have been instrumental in
helping cellular providers such as Bharti Airtel setup a WiMAX
network in India, believe that as adoption increases, the usage
plan of WiMAX will be similar to cell phone devices. Says Ashish
Sharma, Vice President – Corporate Markets Development,
Alvarion, “A large ecosystem of device vendors developing
WiMAX devices for the global market is already present. Once a mass
market is developed, we expect the devices for WiMAX to be
available at price points similar to cell phone devices.”
Mobility is the strongest
point for WiMAX, and will be a significant factor in influencing
adoption. Says Arun O Gupta, Group Chief Technology Officer,
Shoppers Stop, “At incremental investment over current
technologies, we expect WiMAX mobility as one of the key drivers
towards adoption, which will help our traveling and out-of-office
associates to remain connected to office productivity tools and
solutions in a similar way as they would be while they are in the
office.”
Evaluating WiMAX over other
options
For companies that have branch offices within
the same city, WiMAX can be cost effective over other traditional
forms of connections such as leased lines or DSL. However, within
the office itself, Wi-Fi is preferred over WiMAX. Hence, CIOs must
carefully evaluate the choices before taking a decision on WiMAX.
Explains Dhir of JSL Limited, “In areas with existing
wireline infrastructure, the cost of rolling out DSL is
significantly lower than setting up a WiMAX infrastructure from
scratch. This is largely due to the low cost of DSL equipment and
other associated infrastructure costs. However, the cost of setting
up a WiMAX base station, on the other hand, can be up to 1.5 times
higher than enabling an exchange for DSL.”
Dhir says that DSL can reach customers within 6 km of the
exchange, while practical WiMAX implementations are likely to have
no more than 3 km reach per base station leading to higher costs
per square km covered. From the customer’s perspective, if
speed is of the essence, then a WiMAX solution will definitely help
in achieving faster rollout, especially in areas where there is
lack of infrastructure.
Research firm Gartner believes that with competing technologies
such as 3G available, WiMAX could be a less preferred option. Says
Naresh Singh of Gartner, “While there have been positive
changes with respect to policy, the infrastructure for 3G is
already available in the form of handsets, which is not present for
WiMAX today.” Singh believes that WiMAX will be used
primarily as an alternative to wired broadband options.
Ensuring WiMAX’s success in
India
For ensuring that WiMAX gets deployed as per plan, the
Government of India has to quickly take decisions with respect to
the spectrum auction. For example, the dates for the spectrum
allocation process were changed recently, due to a request from the
Finance ministry to double the minimum bid prices. Though the
request was rejected, it again delayed the dates for the spectrum
allocation, which the operators have been waiting for a long time.
Resolving the spectrum allocation issue is crucial for the success
of WiMAX, and one can expect the floodgates of opportunities to
open, once the spectrum issue is resolved.
With WiMAX, India stands at the threshold of an exciting
opportunity to make impressive strides in bridging the digital
divide. WiMAX can also play a leading role in bringing the benefits
of connectivity to an unconnected India that has for long suffered
from policies and technologies designed for economies of scale.