Women led startup-Astrome Develops Product for Low Cost High Speed Internet

By: WE Staff | Tuesday, 30 March 2021

The Bangalore-based startup, Astrome has developed a wireless product "GigaMesh" that provides fiber-like bandwidth at a fraction of the cost of fiber. A women-led tech startup, Astrome’s product can be used by telecom operators to deliver quality, high speed, and reliable low-cost internet services to suburban and rural areas. 

The Ministry of Science and Technology acknowledged the startup and said, "Wireless product called 'Giga Mesh' could enable telecom operators to deploy quality, high-speed rural telecom infrastructure at five times lower cost. Rural connectivity customers and defense customers who have already signed up for pilots would soon witness the demonstration of this product by Astrome.” 

GigaMesh has been developed based on patented millimeter wave wireless technology and it provides multiple point-to-point links of multi-Gbps capacity. The core of the solution is a Packet Microwave radio system with an electronically steerable and flexible narrow beam architecture. The product works towards reducing network congestion and also makes existing infrastructure 5G ready. 

A single GigaMesh device can provide up to 40 links with 2+ Gbps capacity each, communicating up to a range of 10 kilometers. This flexibility in range makes it suitable for both decongesting the dense urban networks as well as extending rural coverage. 

Incubated at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and supported by the DST-ABI Woman Startup Programme of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, the startup proved their millimeter-wave multi-beam technology in the laboratory in 2018. Astrome has been granted a patent for its technology in India and the US. 

"Indian Institute of Science played a critical role by helping us connect with investors, providing business mentorship, and giving us space to conduct our product field trials," says, Neha Satak, Co-founder & CEO, Astrome. 

The startup has received the ITU SME award from International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for the innovative solution in Connectivity. 

Astrome was also selected by Evo Nexus, a prestigious 5G accelerator programme that will help them launch their product in the global market. 

Astrome is currently conducting a field trial at the Indian Institute of Science (university campus). In this field trial, the company has already achieved data streaming at multi-Gbps speeds across the campus. This could solve much of the last mile connectivity telecom needs of our country.