Dr. C.S. Rao

Chairman of WiMAX Forum India

He is President of Association of Cellular Operators Association, since September, 2010 and the Chairman of WiMAX Forum India since 2007. Dr. C.S. Rao is currently the President- Corporate Affairs & Regulatory of Reliance Communications, a position which he has held since September, 2010.

Prior to this, he has held prestigious positions of Managing Director- Mobile Wireless, Intel- India, South Asia & Middle East (2008 -2010) and Managing Director, BT (British telecom) India Pvt. Ltd. (2006-2007). He has also served as the President & CEO of Lucent India (2004-2006) and as the Managing Director of Tellabs India (1994-2004).

Earlier, Dr. Rao was also a part of the core group team of first ten founder members at C-DOT and has worked as General Manager, C-DOT (1985-1994).

Dr. C.S. Rao has been honoured with several prestigious awards including Business Leadership Award, Assocham, a National Chamber of Commerce and Innovation, Leadership &Achievement Awards, Tellabs, USA and LUCENT, USA. He also received the National Research &Development Council (NRDC) award from Hon'ble President of India.

Apart from the various awards Dr. Rao has achieved, he has also been honored with the respectable post of OSD to Mr. Sam Pitroda, Advisor to PM and has been made the Hon. Prof of Electronics & Communications Dept, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam.

Dr. C.S. Rao has had several achievements throughout his long and successful career. He achieved BWA Spectrum Auction for 3 slots of 20MHz each Mobile & Wireless Broadband. He started the world famous Bell Labs in India in 2004 - first ever outside of USA and had pioneered the concept of 21st Century NW for BT (British Telecom) in India.

Dr. Rao was a premier figure in the rollout of the first largest CDMA network in India for 30 million subscribers at Reliance Telecom and has pioneered the first ever Nationwide MDN (MLLN) Network launch. He had a prime role in the launch of PAN India SDH Network / 10G DWDM NW. He had a pioneering role of first ever ISDN in India in 1989 at CDOT and successfully established a $ 2 B (Rs 8000 cr.) NW Infra in India through Tellabs, USA, LUCENT, USA, & BT, U.K.

Dr. Rao has done his B.Tech & M.Tech from IIT- Chennai and was a rank holder in both. He has also received a Ph.D from Andhra University.