Alcatel to ready WiMax beta by '06

French telecom solutions major Alcatel will be ready with the beta version of WiMax technology for mobile communications by the second half of 2006, while it will be commercially available by the end of next year.

The company is positioning the wireless networking standard that is being developed at its Chennai centre as an ideal platform for telecommunications across the globe and specially for the rural foray of Indian telecom operators.

The company was also planning to increase its quantum of research and development (R&D) outsourcing to Asia, of which India and China will get the lion's share. Alcatel is to increasing focus on R&D and the outsourcing, to be made to its India subsidiary Alcatel India.

Sharma also said that Alcatel was planning to make India one of its major manufacturing hubs and increase R&D outsourcing to its Indian subsidiary, Alcatel India. The company's present R&D budget is of around $1.8 billion with 17,000 engineers across the world, of which 1,000 are based in India.

However, he did not divulge the exact quantum of increase to the country. "We are making rapid progress in WiMax R&D and are hoping to launch beta version by mid-next year. The research has reached an advanced stage and have completed the standardisation process, and we expect it the technology to be available for commercial operations in the next six months of beta launch," Ravi Sharma, MD and president (South Asia), Alcatel told Business Standard here today.

The company intends to market the technology to both international and domestic operators from its R&D facility in Chennai, C-DOT Alcatel Research.

The centre was set up in association with Indian government's Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), with an investment of Rs 212 crore.

Alcatel holds a 51 per cent stake in the joint venture, with the remaining held by C-DoT and under the condition that all intellectual property (IP) generated will be jointly held by the partners.

The centre was set up with the intention of making it Alcatel's fourth largest R&D centre in the world - after Europe, North America and China - was concentrating on technology development, while infrastructure is being developed its global centres.

According to Sharma, Wimax is the cheapest option for providing connectivity in the rural areas as fixed lines can be a costly affair, not to mention their surging maintenance costs, and technology could also help in tiding over the infrastructure hurdles, as wireless could be cheaper and efficient than fixedline.

The company has signed a memorandum of understkanding (MoU) with C-DOT to manufacture broadband products based on Wimax technology.