Tata Communications is a keen supporter of WiMAX and is ready to prove its loyalty with a US$500 milion investment. Some speculation has emerged regarding which company or companies is or are about to be awarded the contract.

Tata Communications claims that its Indian broadband wireless network is the largest of its kind anywhere in the world. The company is only weeks away from choosing the company/companies to build up mobile WiMAX infrastructure and to select the Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) vendors for the new network.

The extent of the WiMAX network can be gauged from the fact that Tata has deployed 1,000 base stations manufactured by Telsima Corporation, plus the fact that it has signed up 10,000 customers since March this year for the 3.3 GHz wireless broadband network. Prateek Pashine, Vice-President of Planning for Retail Business at Tata Communications, is playing a key role in the decisions, although he is not in a position even to name the shortlisted vendors or to indicate the size of potential contracts.

Analysts of Tata believe that there are seven vendors competing for Tata’s favour. They include Telsima which, as mentioned, has already won supply contracts but also Alvarion (already in India via a contract won from Bharti Airtel) and Huawei (in Pakistan via a WiMAX contract). Prateek Pashine expects in the next few days to write to two or three WiMAX equipment vendors and to receive replies in the next month. One fact he has noted is that equipment suppliers have come to respect Tata's intentions more over the last two years- and that includes the companies he has been investigating for their suitability for Tata's WiMAX plans.

Mr Prashine continues: “I’ve never seen an operator have to go knock at a vendor’s door and say, ‘Look at me,’” he says. “Two years ago, people just said, ‘Go away... WiMax means 2.5 GHz or 3.5 GHz.’ Today, they are eating out of our hands.”

Hardly surprising as to him Tata has the largest and densest city network in the world in Bangalore alone, with 200 base stations deployed there. “That’s given a message to the vendor community,” he says. “The numbers we’re talking about are enough to attract vendors to look seriously and say, ‘I can customise products for the Indian market.’”

One can not accuse Tata of timidity or of being a minor market. The company is "adding 2,500 to 3,000 customers per month." Ghaziabad and Faridabad (near New Delhi) have just come on stream, and Hyderabad, Chandigarh, New Delhi, Gurgaon, and Noida will soon come on stream. No fewer than 120 Indian cities are in Tata's sights from business services and 12 cities for residential services by March 2009.

Source:Unstrung.