WiMAX WaTCH: India's Tata Communications Beats Sprint to the Punch

Sprint's XOHM WiMAX network might still be on track to reach 100 million people, but even 100 million people is chump change compared to the size of the market in India. If Sprint is looking for a little inspiration for how to properly roll out WiMAX, they need look no further than India's Tata Communications:

India is about to become the frontier for high-speed, mobile Internet connections. On March 4, India's Tata Communications, an emerging broadband player, announced the countrywide rollout of a commercial WiMax network, the largest anywhere in the world of the high-speed, wireless broadband technology.
Already 10 Indian cities and 5,000 retail and business customers use the product, and by next year Tata will offer service in 115 cities nationwide. The folks at Tata can hardly contain their excitement. “WiMax is not experimental, it's oven-hot,” says Tata's Prateek Pashine, in charge of the company's broadband and retail business. - [Open Gardens]

We've about reached the point where 3G has penetrated the majority of the US on the majority of carriers (apologies to T-Mobile and to, uh, my hometown, which is still EDGE-only), so it's only natural that we're looking ahead to WiMAX and the GSM-based LTE, to say nothing of the new spectrum that Verizon and AT&T just snapped up. Still, wouldn't it be nice if the roadmap for where and when we'll see these lightning fast mobile speeds was a little clearer?