BSNL plans to have 250,000 WiMax users by December

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has said that it is planning to have a base of at least 250,000 WiMax customers by the year end.
Speaking to Telecom Yatra, Pradeep Nagpal, general manager, BSNL national network planning, CDMA and WiMax said, “As on date, BSNL has approximately 3,000 WiMax customers and we intend to have a customer base of at least 250,000 by December 2010.”
Nagpal said that the company has recently launched WiMax services in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, with 25 base stations in each of these states. It has also rolled-out the service with 210 base stations spread across North and East India. Its present roll-out has covered approximately 4000 common rural service centres. A base station is a wireless communications station installed at a fixed location and used to communicate with WiMAX or any other wireless system.
On future plans, Nagpal added, “BSNL plans to launch urban WiMax in Kerala and Punjab by March this year. Apart from that, we intend to launch urban WiMax on a revenue share basis in other states. Also, 1,000 base stations will be commissioned in rural areas in the coming month.”
For rolling-out its WiMax network, BSNL is currently working with HCL; Chinese telco Huawei; Gemini Communications, a technology and network provider headquartered in Chennai; Pointred, a Bangalore-based wireless design and product company; ICOMM, a Hyderabad-based company with interests that include telecom and Harris Stratex, a network provider with global presence and headquarters in the USA and in Singapore.