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.