SNRC Industry Seminar Series - "Recent Developments in Broadband Wireless Access"

Abstract

Broadband Wireless Access or BWA, is often referred to as the third leg of the Broadband Access stool, the other

two being Cable and DSL. The BWA industry has had a chequered past, with several false starts in the past ten

years. It currently occupies a niche position as an access option in the developed world, and is mostly confined to rural

markets. In the less developed parts of the world, BWA is emerging as an important complement to wireline access.

This market scenario is currently undergoing rapid changes, due to the impending availability of BWA equipment

based on the WiMAX standard. WiMAX is expected to transform the BWA market in a way similar to the effect of

WiFi on the wireless LAN market. In this talk, I will give an overview of WiMAX technology and how it differs from

related technologies such as WiFi and 3G.

Biography

Subir Varma is vice president of engineering for Aperto Networks. He is responsible for product development and architectural definition of the company's fixed broadband wireless access systems. Prior to joining the founding team at Aperto, Dr. Varma was director of systems architecture at Hybrid Networks where he was responsible for the first widely deployed MMDS broadband wireless system. He previously held technical leadership positions at LSI and IBM, and has been an active contributor to IEEE 802, ATM-Forum and DOCSIS. Dr. Varma holds 18 U.S. Patents, with several others pending. He earned his B.Tech in EE from IIT Kanpur and an MS and Ph.D. EE, from the University of Maryland at College Park.