Mobile WiMAX: city all set for a leap

Mobile WiMAX: city all set for a leap
The Hindu

Pune has overtaken Bangalore in fixed connections

BANGALORE: Bangalore will be ahead of Pune in mobile WiMAX, according to M.N. Vidyashankar, Secretary, Department of Information Technology.

WiMAX is the short form for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access that enables high-speed Internet access.

Delivering the valedictory address of a two-day national workshop on wireless communications here on Saturday, Mr. Vidyashankar said Pune had overtaken Bangalore in offering fixed WiMAX connections.

In Bangalore, Reliance had given 21,000 fixed WiMAX connections, he said.

“But what thrills me and others is mobile WiMAX,” he said. Bangalore was poised to overtake Pune in mobile WiMAX communication.

“The technology is finalised,” he said and added that each WiMAX tower would cover an area of three km to 10 km around it.

Mr. Vidyashankar said that information technology and information technology-enabled Services (ITES) employed about 5 lakh people in the State and contributed nearly 25 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

Director of the International Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore S. Sadagopan; advisor to SiRF Technology Pvt. Ltd. M. Chandrasekaran and Director of BMN Institute of Technology T.J. Rama Murthy spoke.