MOSCOW (WiMAX Day). The Russian WiMAX Company Start Telecom and Intel Corporation launched a pilot project for emergency health services last year in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, the fourth largest city in Russia.

The project provides a WiMAX connection between the Emergency Response Unit (ER) ambulance station and ambulance teams in the field. The result is that time-critical information is exchanged between the ER station, the ambulance workers, and city hospitals.

Vladimir Logashova, the chief physician for the ambulance station in Nizhny Novgorod believes the program will vastly improve the quality of emergency health care in his city. “A few years ago we, the main ambulance doctors from all over the country, were introduced to a similar system in London. At that time we could only dream of having such technologies,” said Logashova. “Today we can use WiMAX technology in Nizhny Novgorod to significantly improve the quality of emergency health care.”

As in most other cities of the world, communications between an ambulance and hospital is by FM radio. In this new pilot project, which soon may be adopted worldwide, the ambulance was equipped with a laptop computer using Intel Centrino Duo and radiotelephonic DECT standard, and NextNet Expedience CPEs by Motorola. Start Telecom provided connectivity to its WiMAX network using a number of frequencies, including 3.4 ~ 3.6 GHz range in Nizhny Novgorod.

Vladimir Lyulin, the general director Start Telecom, said in a recent interview that the company believes that technology based on the WiMAX standard has an important roll to play in the modernization of Russia’s public services, such as emergency response units and police departments.

The Mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, Vadim Bulavinov, agreed that this pilot project should merely be a “first step” into a system that he would like to see implemented into clinics and services throughout the city.

However, launching similar projects will be difficult without support from the local and federal government. “The ability to launch similar projects [will] depend on many factors; most important is frequency allocation to a national or regional Telco and a city’s intent to allocate funds into such projects,” said Evgeny Zakablukovsky, a spokesman for Intel, Russia.

Intel has invested approximately $1 billion into WiMAX technology around the world and is currently active in several WiMAX projects and infrastructure developments in Russia.