Now, reliable low-cost internet services for rural areas

Team L&M

In countries like India, getting internet access to remote locations is a challenge as laying fibre is very expensive. There is a requirement for wireless backhaul products at low cost, high data capacity along with wide reach. At present, wireless backhaul products neither provide sufficient data speed nor the range required. Also, they are expensive.

A women-led start-up, Astrome, has developed an innovative wireless product that gives fibre like bandwidth at fraction of cost of fibre to help telecom operators deliver reliable low-cost internet services to suburban and rural areas. Giga Mesh, a wireless product, can enable telecom operators to deploy quality, high-speed rural telecom infrastructure at five times lower cost. The deep tech start-up incubated at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and been supported by DST-ABI Woman Startup Programme of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, proved their millimetre-wave multi-beam technology in the lab in 2018. The organisation has been granted a patent in India and the USA.

Giga Mesh, a multi-beam E-band product, packs six Point-to-Point E-band radios in one, thereby distributing the cost of the device over multiple links. Hence, it reduces capital expenditure too. The radio provides long-range and multi-Gbps data throughput at each link.