Affordable D2M Mobile Phones: US Firm Partners with Saankhya Labs

New Delhi, Sep 22 (PTI) A US-based company has joined hands with Indian firm Saankhya Labs and an IIT, Kanpur-incubated startup to design and roll out value-for-money mobile phones with augmented direct-to-mobile (D2M) broadcast capability.

US-based Sinclair Inc., Saankhya Labs and Free Stream Technologies Private Limited, a startup incubated in the IIT-Kanpur, are commencing consumer trials for multi-media delivery and datacasting-use cases.

Consumer trials will be conducted on a variety of D2M devices comprising smartphones, USB dongle accessories, set top boxes and gateways and also, low-cost feature phones, a statement from the Bengaluru-based Saankhya Labs said.

"We expect to launch these devices for trials in the first half of 2025. This competitive market segment can be expected to produce affordable phones for the Indian and global markets," Chris Ripley, president and CEO of Sinclair Inc., said.

The value-for-money mobile phones will be powered by Saankhya's Pruthvi-3 ATSC 3.0 chipsets.

"For rapid proliferation of the device ecosystem, we are actively working with a number of mobile device suppliers to develop solutions that integrate our award-winning Software Defined Radio (SDR) chipsets," Parag Naik, founder and CEO of Saankhya Labs, said.