Tata Communications Selects Telsima for major WiMAX rollout

Tata Communications has selected Telsima Corporation to provide WiMAX solutions for Tata Communications broadband wireless network in India. Tata Communications is the first to launch broadband services on the WiMAX
platform on a large scale for retail consumers in India.

-- Over 5000 Enterprise and Retail customers already up in ten cities; Aggressive plans to capture 200,000 customers in retail segment alone in FY 2009

-- Bangalore unwired for Retail customers; over 600 base station sectors deployed and radiating

-- Plans to roll out WiMAX in 110 cities for Enterprise and 15 Cities for Retail Segment by 2008

-- Telsima WiMAX solutions selected for the largest deployment; 3000 base station sectors being deployed

-- Telsima WiMAX solutions selected based on advanced wireless technologies; Largest WiMAX STC/MRC network ever deployed

In the initial phase, Tata Communications' WiMAX network will offer Broadband Internet access and content services to enterprise and residential customers in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Cochin, Chandigarh, and Kolkata. By the end of 2008 Tata Communications plans to have enabled WiMAX retail broadband service in about 15 cities.

"Tata Communications' seeks to enrich life by enabling reliable and affordable communication anytime, anywhere", said Shankar Prasad, President, Tata Communications' Retail Business Unit. "To that end Tata Communications has selected Telsima to provide WiMAX infrastructure and subscriber equipment solutions to deploy our commercial WiMAX network, with 3000 base station sectors already getting deployed. This enables our customers to access video, education, music and business services. Telsima's focus on meeting the needs of the Indian market and their commitment to deploy state-of-the-art WiMAX solutions for a competitive market such as ours prompted us to select them amongst various other solution providers. Telsima's solution equipped with STC/MRC technology allows us to increase base station capacity thereby improving our ability to serve large number of customers with high quality and high speed broadband."

"WiMAX enables broadband services in a cost effective, decentralized manner in India where a majority of the country is not covered by wired infrastructure. The Indian broadband market, which today serves only 3.1 million customers in a nation with a population of over 1.2 billion, is forecast to grow significantly. The scale of unmet demand coupled with the emphasis on connectivity for education and the increasing ability to purchase Internet services will ensure that WiMAX broadband networks will thrive in this market," Shankar Prasad further added.

"Inflection points create new winners", said Alok Sharma, Telsima's CEO. "WiMAX combines disruptions in Radio Frequency and Internet Protocol technologies to support new cost structures that enable the proliferation of wireless broadband telecommunications services into new markets. Telsima has capitalized upon this opportunity and delivered the largest and most advanced WiMAX deployments in the world."

In support of Tata Communications' broadband wireless network, Telsima provided a comprehensive WiMAX solution including base station and subscriber station systems, customer provisioning system and Network Management System (NMS).

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