Tata Communications has recently announced its appointment on
the Board of Directors of the WiMAX Forum. Prateek Pashine, COO of
Tata Communications’ retail broadband unit, will serve as the
representative to the WiMAX Forum board.
“The strong representation by global operators to the
WiMAX Forum board shows how evolved the WiMAX ecosystem has
become,” said Pashine. “Various researches have
predicted that India will play an important role in the development
of the global WiMAX ecosystem, and we will bring that perspective
to the forefront within the Forum. Markets such as India have
unique product and business model needs which we expect would lead
the way for other markets and operators around the
world.”
Pashine has been with the Tata Group since 1995. He was
responsible for setting up Tata Communications Lanka (formerly VSNL
Lanka) operations and served as Director on its Board for two
years. He has worked on various committees set up by the Government
of India to explore options on broadband initiatives with other
countries. He has worked in various industries such as hospitality,
software, real estate and telecom equipment and services. Pashine
was the recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship of US and attended
the Fulbright-CII Fellowship programme for Leadership in Management
at the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, in 2006.
He is also the Chair of the Wireless Broadband Alliance which is a
global body involved in the expansion of roaming data services.
Currently, Tata Communications is an active member of the WiMAX
Forum India Chapter (WFIC) and holds leadership positions in three
of the chapter’s four working groups. The company also serves
as the driving force for opening a certification lab in India and
hopes to establish a live network test bed using its network in the
near future.
Other members of the WiMAX Forum Board include: Airspan
Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Alvarion, Aperto Networks, British
Telecom, Clearwire Corporation, Comcast Cable, Fujitsu, Huawei
Technologies, Information and Communications Research Laboratories
at Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI),
Intel Corporation, KDDI, KT, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sprint, and
ZTE.