India finds a voice in 4G

A hushed looking professor from IIT Chennai has been quite busy over the past months outside the classroom holding discussions, making presentations, liaising with Indian telecom operators. Slowly, he has been scripting an Indian story in the next generation international wireless standardization, which ensures that equipments talk to each other. In other words, assurance that a radio transmitter built by one company, for instance, effectively communicates with the radio receiver built by another firm.

The man in question, Bhaskar Ramamurthi heads the Centre of quality in Wireless Technology (CEWiT), a society set up jointly by the department of IT (DIT) and industry. One of its missions is to join in these standardizations, addressing Indian market requirements. Historically, the country has been missing the bus when it came to contributing to wireless standard setting. When research organizations and the industry woke up a few years ago, the 3G standard had already been finalized. They currently visualize a good chance with the 4th generation of radio technologies, which seeks to really enhance the capacity and speed of mobile telephone networks.

CEWiT is participating in two major ongoing 4G standardization efforts 802.16m and LTE advanced. 802.16 is a series of wireless broadband standards authored by the IEEE, an association that advances scientific innovation. Recently, the IEEE 802.16 Working Group convened in Bangalore to thrash out the new ‘m’ standard.