Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Wimax - Tata or BSNL in India ?

A few months ago, we noticed some nifty Wimax gear from the UT website and started speculating on potential contracts with BSNL.

http://www.utstar.co.jp/Company/Events/07interop/WiMAX_e.pdf

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=136729

Today, Tata unleash its wimax deployment.

http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=147494

UT announced on the earnings call and on the Merriman conference that they had won a 3rd and 4th IPTV contract in India and those are probably with BSNL and Tata since Reliance is working with Microsoft-Alcatel-Lucent. While Tata contracted with a local vendor Telsima for its wimax deployment, it is also looking to add other vendors and UT could be in the running. UTs wimax gear is formally the Moving Media 9000 and its part of the Mobile Solutions Business Unit (MSBU). This business unit supports IPCDMA, GSM solutions. Growth is in the 30% and gross margins are expected to be in the 40s in 2008. It would be a tremendous boost to this business unit if they can win in India and showcase their gear. There seems to be a ton of wimax business to be had and UTs investments and products coincide with the market demand in India.

"Tata isn't the only operator with WiMax plans in India. Some have described the market as being poised for a WiMax "big bang" as operators prefer to build out significant portions of their networks before making formal launch announcements."