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Bangalore has joined the elite club of cities enjoying high-speed wireless Internet services, popularly called WiMAX. Aircel Business Solutions (ABS) on Thursday launched the WiMAX service in the city. Base stations (towers) have been set up at Electronics City, Airport Road, St. John's Road, Jayanagar, Rajajinagar and Koramangala, each covering a radius of 5 km to 6 km. More will come up shortly, said Ram Shinde, Business Head, ABS, part of Chennai-based Aircel.
...
Mr. Shinde said the charges would be on a par with those offered by BSNL, which was now offering up to 2 mbps connectivity at Rs. 250 a month. "Who will buy WiMAX if the prices are higher than that?" he asked.
26 more cities including Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi, Cochin and Ahmedabad will get WiMAX. It is more efficient in preventing virus attacks. Connections would be given within 48 hours after applications were submitted, he said.


Source and full article:
The Hindu


ps: Did not understand the wimax preventing virus attacks part.

We have had WiMax since October 06

@theMAG:
How do I get it? And, could you please share your experience about it?

Ooh....my area of so-called 'expertise'!

WiMAX networks have been rolled out (successfully) around the world since early 2005, but only recently have the equipment and the ISPs come to India (in the metros so far).

As the article says, Aircel is actually one of the first ISPs in India to roll out WiMAX services - they started in Chennai and then spread their wings to Bangalore and then the northern cities.

Some trivia:
-Bangalore's nascent WiMAX network was made operational for 'demo' purposes during the recently held (Oct. '06 I think) IT.in seminar. It was at this time that CM Kumaraswamy said (hilariously enough) that WiMAX will help solve Bangalore's traffic problems due to the fact that more people will be able to work from home!! lol:

-So-called 'pre-WiMAX' networks have existed in India before through companies such as Convergent Networks, etc. However, these were actually wireless LAN networks set up with huge antennas to provide long range WiFi hotspots.

The technology:
WiMAX (short for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) allows for wireless networks with broadband data rates with ranges of upto 75 km being covered by a single base station! However, this is an ideal scenario and most base stations in the city will most likely be able to cover a 20-30 km radius.

There are two breeds of WiMAX, both defined by the IEEE standards 802.16d-2004 and 802.16e-2005. The former is 'fixed' WiMAX where both base and subscriber stations are stationary and the latter is 'mobile' WiMAX where subscriber stations can be mobile up to speeds of 120 kph and still receive good service.

Although fixed WiMAX networks are sprouting up around the world, mobile WiMAX still has a long way to go considering that chipsets supporting it are still not in mass production!

The South-Korean version of mobile WiMAX, WiBro, has been out for a while and is being used there for hi-speed 3G/3.5G services (such as mobile phone net access). WiBro however, is still not capable of very high speeds or great distances like 802.16e.

So what do you need to have WiMAX at home?
1) Obviously, a subscription for WiMAX service from a wireless ISP (like Aircel).
2) A base station fairly 'close' to your area (see distances above).
3) A subscriber station of some sort. At the time, most customer premise equipment (as it is known) is offered in the form of an a) indoor modem-like station (looks like a bulky DSL modem) and b) outdoor station with flat panel antenna and ethernet connections for indoors.

Now, I havent myself tried out Aircel's offerings, but (since I work for a wireless test and measurement company ;) ) have tried accessing the 'net with our very own base and subscriber station setup in and around my building. The speed is definitely way faster than DSL, but this remains to be seen in a realtime scenario in India.

There is one thing to be optimistic about though (concerning speeds)....DSL in India is still very slow compared to other countries due to the poor telecom line infrastructure in place (considering we're using phone lines that are decades old in some cases). The WiMAX infrastructure we will use though, is state-of-the-art and fairly new. How our ISPs deploy it remains to be seen.......

Thanks vez, that was a very good info. I hope this will become reality as mentioned in intial post. Thats the way technology should go, getting rid of all the wires

For those who want more information on WiMax:

General info:
WiMAX - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
WiMAX Forum - WiMAX Home

Standards:
10101 ~ -< ))) "802.16" ((( >- ~ 10101
10101 ~ -< ))) "802.16" ((( >- ~ 10101

White papers/technical background:
http://developer.intel.com/technology/itj/2004/volume08issue03/vol8_iss03.pdf
http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/edevices/microelectronics/broadbandwireless/whitepaper/

Speed and mobility comparo between technologies:


Example of WiMax Architecture

Can we have private WiMAX networks in India, I mean to connect to different offices. I have line of sight from home to office building. If I want my home network to be part of office LAN, can I setup a WiMAX to bridge my home LAN and office LAN? I know technology can do it, but is it legal, what kind of equipment cost is involved?please:

Lease a line from BSNL - its probably cheaper.

PS: I just read again - this is for use at HOME? You want to set up a wireless link from office to home? Why dont you just a VPN with a high-bandwidth internet connection at home? Its not like your office will be working from home - its just you, right?

That's the only option I have now, I want to explore other options too. Even Airtel is not available to the new office building.

Su-47,

Cable & Wireless have Wimax after their recent (Jul 06) takeover of Zee broadband. If you have Zee broadband in your area, chances are you're on Wimax - like me. Beautiful speeds, slightly erratic at times, but completely wireless. No complaints thus far

Me too. The company I work for makes WiMax chipsets as well. I have never seen this being mentioned. Atleast, I do not see it being any more safer than WiFi or UMTS.

Thats funny indeed. Till we can drill some sense into the cab drivers, truck drivers and auto drivers, not much can change.

theMAG: Zee Broadband!!! Once bitten twice shy.. I think I will retain Dataone and Hathway (backup) for now....

Have anyone used the Reliance WiMax in Mumbai?

If you have line of sight, then there are wireless (similar to microwave) point to point metro Ethernet connectivity options.. you can google wireless mesh networking, metro ethernet etc.. and find options..

You are replying to a question which was solved long back. I successfully created a WiFi bridge over 760 meters to get the connectivity, I posting this message over it.:)