Business - WiMax players make beeline for India to set up software centres

Durba Ghosh


NEW DELHI: After making itself an attractive destination for both mobile networks manufacturing and related R&D, the country looks set to offer s
imilar opportunities for WiMax. All leading players in the WiMax sector such as Alcatel-Lucent, Alvarion, Telsima, Beceem, Wavesat and Motorola told ET that they are increasingly looking at India as one of the bases for WiMax software development and also to house their manufacturing facilities in the near future.

According to industry estimates, network majors who have manufacturing and R&D facilities have already led a combined investment of close to $2 billion in India towards WiMax.

The C-DoT Alcatel-Lucent Research Centre (CARC) in Chennai, which completed India’s first live WiMax IEEE 802.16e-2005 (also called Rev-e) field trial using Aircel’s licenced spectrum, way back in 2007, will use the country as one of its key bases for this technological platform.

This technology has already been jointly patented by Alcatel-Lucent and C-DoT is being commercial deployment at present. Importantly, Alcatel-Lucent has decided to utilise India for manufacturing broadband and WiMax equipment through a transfer of technology and contract manufacturing arrangement with state-owned ITI. This will happen at the ITI plant at Naini.

Other global firms too are on a similar path. “Almost 33% of Beceems total chipset production happens in India. We are also looking at tying up with OEMs,” said Beceems regional director Sunil Kumar. Beceem employs more than 130 engineers in its India R&D center at Bangalore. Beceems is a leading global player for semiconductor chips, solutions and technology and in the fast growing WiMax mobile market. The company’s chipsets are increasingly being used to build commercial mobile WiMax networks in Asia.

Aricent, one of the significant players in the industry has invested close to $400 million in its R&D centre at India. The company has tagged along more than 200 engineers to develop base station software as well as ASN gateway and has plans to ramp up the headcount to about 500 till next year.

“Almost 80%-90% of our total operations happen from India. The country contributes about 30% to the global market for WiMax equipment and softwares. India is a large market and we are keen on driving investment here,” said Aricent Head (wireless & convergence datacom) Ajay Gupta.

The wireless market research firm, Maravedis estimates that India’s decision to award WiMax spectrum 3.3 and 3.5 GHz frequency bands, equipment opportunities will rise rapidly from a mere $25 million at present. WiMax Forum’s India chairman, C S Rao estimates that currently, close to 2,000 engineers are already employed across the industry to develop WiMax enabled devices, application software while adding that that about 50% of global software development for WiMax is taking place in India.

Apart from global players, several WiMax-related start-ups have also emerged. US-based Telsima is working with Tata Teleservices on its WiMax deployment; Sloka Telecom, a start-up based here, which has been building WiMax networks in France, Brazil and Indonesia, is also eyeing the Indian market.

“More than 60% of software development is happening in India. About 50 people work at our facility and once the spectrum is available and roll out starts the number is expected to increase,” said Telsima’s VP for manufacturing Raj Iyer.