IITB leads charge in 4G technology

The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT Bombay) has made a significant contribution to international standards in wireless communications, a first by India. The development has been made possible by Tata Teleservices -- IIT Bombay Centre for Excellence in Telecom (TICET), which is part of the government's Telecom Centres of Excellence (TCOE).

Set up in the public-private partnership mode, the centres were established in the IITs, IISc-Bangalore and IIM Ahmedabad last year to contribute considerably to the telecom industry nationally and globally. Each centre is associated with a service provider; for instance, IIT Bombay is collaborating with Tata Teleservices which is funding Rs12 crore over five years.

"The broad objective is to develop technologies to help Indian operators, to contribute to and participate in international standards. Though we have the biggest telecom market, India is not perceived as a driver of technologies but as a consumer," said Abhay Karandikar, professor in IIT Bombay's electrical engineering department. He is the coordinator of TICET.

"We are mostly importing technologies from the developed world. We have already missed (contributing to) second and third generation wireless technologies, so we should be able to contribute towards fourth generation (4G)," said Karandikar.

As part of this objective, TICET has launched several projects. "We have started participating in international standards called mobile wimax. The algorithm was accepted in international standards in July 2009 and is one of the candidate technologies for 4G," he said. TICET has also filed for Indian and US patents.

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