CHENNAI (WiMAX Day). Aircel Business Solutions (ABS) of India announced that they intend to launch WiMAX networks in the Indian cities of Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune, Delhi, Cochin and Ahmedabad.

Speaking to reporters in Chennai, Ram Shinde, Senior Vice President of ABS, said the company planned to launch WiMAX in 10 cities in the first phase and another 34 cities in the second phase.

Shinde added that the roll-out in the first phase would require an investment of up to USD $100 million. Aircel, a unit of GSM operator Aircel Group owned by Maxis, has already commited USD $3 billion for expansion in India, which includes a national roll-out of 3G services. Shinde said the ambitious roll-out of WiMAX across the 44 cities would be completed in six months to one year, and would run along with their 3G roll-out.

ABS already has over 50 Wi-Fi ‘hotspots’ with indoor and outdoor points back-hauled with WiMAX, and these hotspots would be increased to several thousand when the WiMAX deployment is completed.

In the initial period, ABS will be targeting services to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and corporates. “We plan to focus on 10 lakh SMEs and 1,000 large corporates,” Shinde told reporters. ABS plans to enter the consumer and retail market in a big way once the price of CPE units comes down to about $50.