Forty-year-old Mupanna, a farm hand in Davangale, Karnataka, has a raging temperature that’s been refusing to go the last couple of days. It’s sapped him of all his energy, but he just has to make it to a doctor. That means a 2 km walk to the nearest bus-stop, followed by a an hour long journey in a bus. He queues up at the district hospital to meet the doctor and when his turn comes it’s too late - the doctor’s duty for that day’s over.

But wait - fortunately for Mupanna, there’s a telemedicine pilot project happening in Mupanna’s village with all the facilities available — ultrasound, XRay, ECG, the works. Mupanna can’t believe his eyes: a doctor in Bangalore checks him up over a video-conferencing solution, and tells him he has a severe viral fever, that’s all. The attendants at Mupanna’s end hands out the medicines he’s prescribed. Now Mupanna’s sold on the idea of future broadband technologies and their applications.

He’s been told that every kid in his village can get an education by getting connected to a school that actually has teachers. And he’s also been told that 2007 has been declared the Year of Broadband.

What’s more, to make all this happen the government plans to set up 1,00,000 community service centres across the country where broadband access will be available for health, education and e-governance. That’s rural - for the city-bred, it’s a whole new hi-tech world: video-streaming, IP TV, mobile internet, a rich entertainment experience, even watching TV and movies on your phone and accessing internet on it, if you don’t want to lug your notebook around. You also need good broadband connectivity to get onto the Web2.0 bandwagon.

The government’s target for broadband, meanwhile, is an ambitious 20 million subscribers by 2010. “About 700-800 million people are not contributing to our 8% GDP growth which has once again begun to stagnate. Considering that it’s mobile telephony that’s created the telecom revolution in India, support for mobile technologies such as 3G and Wimax must come soon from the government - that’s what will make a difference to broadband penetration, especially in remote areas,” says a DoT official.

But nearly half-way into the much-touted Year of Broadband, ask anyone in the telecommunications sector when they expect some clarity on the government’s policy on 3G and Wimax technologies, and there’s scepticism all around. Both 3G, third-generation mobile technology, and Wimax or worldwide interoperability for microwave access, provide wireless data over long distances.

Mobile Wimax of the 802.16e standard, experts feel, will be just the solution for providing high-speed, inexpensive broadband connectivity across India on the go. That means, you can access internet on your notebook or any handheld device even while moving in a car. Fixed Wimax, which has already been deployed by various telecom operators and internet service providers provides wireless broadband, allows you to access internet within the range of your base station.

Meanwhile, fixed Wimax that it had launched about 18 months back hasn’t been very successful. “We initially planned to cover 10 cities, but that hasn’t happened because of integration and billing issues,” the BSNL official said. And there’s Intel, which plans to bring out its Wimax chips soon.