MIDAS COMMUNICATIONS: Egyptian connection

["Frederick Noronha (FN)" <fred@bytesforall.org>]

GUESS which Indian company has bagged teh biggest export order in the 
telecom sector? Midas Communications, a seven-year-old R&D company based 
in Chennai, focussing on rural telephony, has just picked a $12 million 
(around Rs 60 crore) order from Egypt.

It will install 200,000 telephone lines based on the corDect wireless in 
local loop (WLL) technology that it has developed in partnership with the 
Tenet group, spearheaded by IIT-Chennai professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala.

An inexpensive solution, corDect WLL is the result of Jhunjhunwala's dream 
to provide affordable telephone lines to the rural poor. While it might be 
a while before the poor in India really get connected, the technology is 
reaching distant shores.

The corDect WLL line costs just a third of conventional coopper-based 
telephone connections. That obviously helped Midas clinch the Egyptian 
deal. Closer home, Reliance Telecom is implementing a 1.5 million-basic 
line, 1,500-town telecom project using the technology. BSNL is using it to 
implement a 577,000 line project. (ENDS)

BusinessWorld (India) March 4-10 2003 (released on March 3)