A recent decision by India’s Department of Telecommunications to allocate and auction WiMAX spectrum at 2.3 and 2.5 GHz, will enable India to connect over one billion new customers, proclaimed WiMAX Forum president Ron Resnick this week.

The WiMAX Forum today highlighted activity in the burgeoning Indian market. They project the Indian WiMAX market, including devices, will be worth $13 billion in 2012. This market projection takes into account 27.5 million WiMAX users, or 19 million WiMAX subscribers in 2012, representing approximately 20% of the global WiMAX user base. According the Indian government, the Indian economy is currently growing at 9% year over year; with an additional 8-10 million mobile phone subscribers every month.

“In India, WiMAX represents a win-win proposition, benefiting both network operators and subscribers at the same time,” explains CS Rao, Chairman, WiMAX Forum India chapter. “Any service provider with innovative service offerings, attractive devices and go-to-market plans that maximize the utility offered by WiMAX technology to price-sensitive Indian customers can use this ready and proven technology to quickly gain market share.”

In August, the WiMAX Forum commended India’s Department of Telecommunications for the allocation of two 20 MHz blocks in both the 2.3 and 2.5 GHz bands. The Indian government plans to auction blocks in the 700 MHz and 3.3-3.6 GHz bands, as they become available. The WiMAX Forum projects that more than 27.5 million Indians will be WiMAX users by 2012 and projects more than 133 million WiMAX users globally by 2012.

“India currently has only 4.5 million broadband users out of a population of 1.2 billion people. And with these recent regulatory decisions, India joins other major developed nations such as the US, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Russia in freeing up prime spectrum for mobile WiMAX deployments,” said Resnick, President and Chairman of the WiMAX Forum.

“With the expected demand for WiMAX-enabled devices brought on by India’s planned WiMAX deployments, WiMAX Forum will add an Indian certification lab to its existing network in 2009. This will be very important to the device-hungry Indian market, which can look forward to connected laptops, USB dongles, ultra-mobile PC’s (UMPCs), mobile handsets, and mobile Internet devices (MIDs).”

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