WiMAX Forum Adds Tata Communications to Board of Directors
The WiMAX Forum has added Tata Communications, one of the world’s largest telecommunications providers, as a new member to its Board of Directors. Prateek Pashine, COO of Tata Communications’ retail broadband unit, will serve as the representative to the WiMAX Forum board.
Mr. Prateek Pashine, Chief Operating Officer of the retail broadband unit of Tata Communications has been with the Tata Group since 1995. Pashine was responsible for setting up Tata Communications Lanka (formerly VSNL Lanka) operations and served as Director on its Board for two years. He has worked on various committees set up by the Government of India to explore options on broadband initiatives with other countries. He has worked in various industries such as hospitality, software, real estate and telecom equipment and services. Pashine was the recipient of the prestigious Fullbright Scholarship of US and attended the Fulbright-CII Fellowship programme for Leadership in Management at the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, in 2006. He is also currently the Chair of the Wireless Broadband Alliance which is a global body involved in the expansion of roaming data services.
Currently, Tata Communications is an active member of the WiMAX Forum India Chapter (WFIC) and holds leadership positions in three of the chapter’s four working groups. Tata Communications also serves as the driving force for opening a certification lab in India and hopes to establish a live network test bed using its network in the near future.
Other members of the WiMAX Forum Board include: Airspan Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Alvarion, Aperto Networks, British Telecom, Clearwire Corporation, Comcast Cable, Fujitsu, Huawei Technologies, Information and Communications Research Laboratories at Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Intel Corporation, KDDI, KT, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sprint, and ZTE.
The WiMAX Forum’s membership base represents a thriving WiMAX ecosystem which supports the more than 472 WiMAX network deployments in 139 countries. A complete list of members is available online at http://www.wimaxforum.org/about/. The WiMAX Forum is the worldwide consortium focused on global adoption of WiMAX and chartered to establish certification processes that achieve interoperability, publish technical specifications based on recognized standards, promote the technology and pursue a favorable regulatory environment.
