Saankhya Labs Launches Last Mile Connectivity Solution Using TV White Spaces

Bengaluru-based Saankhya Labs, a fabless semiconductor company has launched a last mile connectivity solution called Meghdoot, that uses TV white spaces to offer last mile connectivity.

Saankhya Labs' Meghdoot solution is deployed using the Dhanush base station, which utilises unlicensed TV spectrum band (50 - 860MHz) to serve wireless Internet to users as far as 10 kilometres away. The modem installed at the customer's premises is called Dhawal.

Parag Naik, CEO and co-founder of Saankhya Labs told Gadgets 360 that his firm was completely vertically integrated in India, as it lacked a hardware ecosystem. The company is looking to partner with other players for international markets as a white-label solution.

According to Naik, UHF and VHF modems are more range efficient, they give longer distances, almost four times for the same speed on Wi-Fi. The base station can run off a solar panel and battery backup setup.

"This is more advanced than Wi-Fi in terms of some of the modulation schemes. It is cognitive, it provides better throughput and range than Wi-Fi in terms of Non Line of Sight (NLOS) operations," he said.

(Also see: Microsoft, Andhra Pradesh to Deliver Internet via TV White Spaces Project)

The specifications listed on Saankhya's website say that 75 households can be served by one base station, assuming a data rate of 4Mbps to the end subscriber and contention ratio (the number of users sharing the same bandwidth) of 1:10.

"Different network architectures are possible if you lower the data rate, you can serve more users. The solution itself is agnostic to it," He said. "The base station can support up to 30 to 60 users, for one given 8MHz channel, ten to fifteen is the ideal number,"

Founded in 2007 by Parag Naik, Hemant Mallapur, and Vishwakumara Kayargadde, Saankhya Labs is an Intel Capital-backed supplier of IC solutions with an established customer base in set top boxes, and satellite receivers. Its customers include BEL (Bharat Electronics Limited and Isro (Indian Space Research Organisation), and is a member of the alliance called DSA (Dynamic Spectrum Alliance), of which Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are a part of.

"The Satellite Receiver for Isro GSAT-6 is actually built by us, and we have co-branded it, with Isro," Naik said.

Saankhya labs has piloted its solution with IIT Delhi, and plans to deploy pilot programs with IIT Bombay, IIT Hyderabad, and in Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh, Naik said, adding that his solution was ideal for rural deployments and can support the Digital India initiative.

"The government needs to put a policy framework in place for regulating its usage, in the US, UK, Singapore and Japan, Philippines, and South Africa, it is already regulated. Anybody is free to use it. In India, DoT and DeiTY are looking into putting a framework in place for regulating its usage," Naik said. "Digital India can be made in India, all of these technologies can be made in Bengaluru," he added.