Mehdi Musharraf Bhuiyan

The country's two WiMax operators are finally set to soft-launch services early next month, propelling Bangladesh to the era of high-speed wireless broadband after a long and bumpy wait.

Banglalion and Augure --- the two private WiMax licensees --- are now ready and waiting to go for trial operation after securing deals with the top global vendors for setting up their networks.

After bargaining with a dozen of big names in world high tech industry, Banglalion has settled with French technology giant Alcatel-Lucent, which would initially supply 100 base stations (BTS) to be set up in the capital.

"We signed the deal with Alcatel-Lucent on Thursday. We hope we can now set up the BTS as early as possible and launch our experimental services by the middle of next month," a top Banglalion official told the FE.

Augure has paired with China's largest networking and telecom hardware vendor Huawei for the supply of BTS and its officials said the company could go for trial kick-off at the end of this month.

"Our final hurdle was finding the right vendor. But after the deal with Huawei, we can now concentrate on setting up the BTSs and selecting a date for formal launching," an Augure official said.

The companies were supposed to commence their services as early as March this year, but a credit dry-up and uncertain economic scenario due to the global recession stood in their way.

Their officials later announced that they would launch the service in June. But the difficulty in finding the right vendor delayed the process further.

Explaining the delay, an official in Banglalion said, "Previously, we have held talks with Samsung and others, but Samsung was more interested in outdoor BTS which would have been a more expensive option."

"Instead, we opted for the safer and less expensive indoor BTS and Alcatel-Lucent agreed to our requirement," he added.

Beginning with 15 base stations, Banglalion's network would be extended to 300 BTS to cover the whole Dhaka city by the end of this year, the official said.

The two WiMax licensees, who have said that they would invest Tk 10 billion in the information super highway, are aiming to go for commercial operation within two months once the trial operation commenced.

Officials said much before they kick off their high-speed wireless broadband, they have been flooded with tens of thousands of prospective subscribers.

"Already around 50,000 users have registered online to subscribe to our service," said a Banglalion official.

"Also, there are many who are interested in availing telemedicine, video conferencing and e-learning services. Everyday their number is piling up," he said, pointing to the manifold business potential of WiMax.

The country's telecom regulator auctioned off three WiMax licensees in August last year in an effort to tap into the business potentials the high-speed broadband services can generate.

BanglaLion Communication, BRAC BD Mail Network Ltd and Augere Wireless Broadband Bangladesh Ltd won the bidding by agreeing to pay US$215 million each. However, BRAC later refused to take the license.

Speculation still reigns over the market potential of such ambitious and expensive business venture, which would usher the country to the 4G era of wireless communication system.