Featured Image: Co-founders of the startup, Neha Satak and Prasad HL Bhat
Astrome, a Indian startup, has developed an innovative wireless product that can be used to deploy high-quality, high-speed internet services at low costs. The technology developed by Astrome gives fibre-like bandwidth at a fraction of the cost of fibre.
Rural customers and defence customers who have already signed up for pilots will soon witness the demonstration of this product.
As providing internet access to remote places in countries like India is difficult due to the high costs of laying fibre, this product can help telecom operators deliver reliable low-cost internet services to suburban and rural areas.
Astrome’s wireless product, called ‘Giga Mesh’, could enable telecom operators deploy quality, high-speed rural telecom infrastructure at five times lower cost.
There is a growing need for wireless backhaul products that can deliver low cost, high data capacity, and wide reach. The currently-available wireless backhaul products either do not provide sufficient data speeds or do not have the required range or are very expensive to deploy.
Company granted India and US patents
The deep tech startup was incubated at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and supported by DST-ABI Woman Startup Program of the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The startup proved their millimeter-wave multi-beam technology in the lab in 2018 and the company was granted a patent in India and the US.
Since then, the technology has been converted to a powerful and scalable product called ‘Giga Mesh’, which can solve much of the last mile connectivity telecom needs of the country. The product has been proven on the field and also integrated with partner products for its upcoming commercialization.
“Indian Institute of Science played a very critical role by helping us connect with investors, providing business mentorship, and giving us space to conduct our product field trials,” said Dr. Neha Satak, Co-founder & CEO at Astrome, while recalling a weeklong trip organized under the DST-ABI woman startup initiative which provided her with valuable inputs from the US VC ecosystem to prepare for the launch in the US market.
Astrome also received the ITU SME Award for the Most Promising Innovative Solution in Connectivity, a major recognition for this product from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). They also got selected by a prestigious 5G accelerator program called Evo Nexus (sponsored by Qualcomm) which will help them launch their product in the global market.
The 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 and hence reducing capital expenditure. The radio provides long-range and multi-Gbps data throughput at each link. Features like automatic link alignment, dynamic power allocation between links, and remote link formation help operators achieve significant operating expenditure cost reduction.
Astrome is currently conducting a field trial at Indian Institute of Science (university campus). In this field trial, the company has already achieved data streaming at multi-Gbps speeds across the campus.
(Source: PIB)
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