Date:22/12/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/12/22/stories/2006122211570500.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Aperto to establish unit in India

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: Aperto Networks, a developer of WiMAX base stations and subscriber units, plans to set up a manufacturing unit in India and is on the lookout for local partners to tie up with.

President and CEO of Aperto Networks Michael K. Pratt told presspersons here on Wednesday the company had already shortlisted a few multinational companies and its local units here were in the process of selecting a manufacturing partner.

"The manufacturing facility may come up some time next year and will be located either in Bangalore or Chennai. We plan to start by manufacturing WiMAX modems and will go on to develop base stations at a later stage," he said.

Aperto Networks local vice-president (marketing and alliances) Manish Gupta also announced that the company would be expanding its Bangalore development centre and setting up a customer support centre here to provide level-one and level-two support to service providers across India and other regions of the world.

"The company has significantly increased its investments in research and development, software and hardware development, and has also expanded its technology partnerships across India. We are expanding our development centre in Bangalore by moving to a newer facility, which is three times the size of the earlier one," he said.

Tie-up with BSNL

BSNL recently started rolling out Aperto's PacketMAX base stations and subscriber units in Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Pune and will soon cover four rural districts in Haryana. The WiMAX network will enable BSNL to offer value-added, high-bandwidth data communication services, including Internet access, leased lines, voice over IP and so on.