Wirelessly wired? Not yet

Says David Appasamy, spokesperson, Sify, 8220;WiFi has captured the imagination of the public in the West, because of the freedom it gives people to work in public spaces without having to plug into anything.8221; Ever since the government lifted licence requirements for the spectrum used by WiFi a year ago, there has been a fair amount of activity, with ISPs like Sify and Tata Indicom getting into the ring.

According to sources, even Dishnet is rumoured to be joining in. Barista outlets across the country are getting Wi-Fi enabled by Tata Indicom, while Sify is handling the departure lounges of international airports in both Chennai and Delhi. Prominent hotel chains like the Oberoi and the Taj have also been WiFi networked. Public spaces apart, these companies are also looking at corporates as a customer base. Eventually, the idea is to move on to the home-user/residential segment.

But the big question is whether the very concept will indeed take off in a big way in India? For a country with an internet penetration of two per cent, and even less for laptops, which is where WiFi realises it full potential, the technology, however enabling, seems to be rather mismatched. One, because laptop sales in India hover around an insignificant 55,000 mark per year. And most of these won8217;t necessarily be high-end laptops that are WiFi enabled. Two, says, M. T. Jeevan from IT magazine Network Computing, there is the issue of price. While prices of WLAN equipment have reduced considerably, the cost of setting up a WLAN is still at least twice that of a wired network. 8220;For five users, it would cost around Rs 10-11,000 to set up a wired LAN, while WLAN for the same number of users comes with a price tag of Rs 40,000. And you8217;d also have to replace all the other elements on your network. Which means that it will be difficult for wireless networks to catch on fast, at least in the near future.8221;

According to Y. V. L. Pandit, COO, Tata Teleservices Maharashtra, 8220;Tata Indicom aims to tap the immense potential of WiFi in a phased manner, and will be extending the concept to every hotel in the major cities, airports and other public hotspots.

At present, a WiFi card has to be installed in most of the access machines. But we believe by the end of next year, all access devices will have inbuilt WiFi capabilities.8221; Pandit also added that the company is, at present, focusing just on public spaces and corporates.

While public spaces like airports and corporate account can keep WiFi going, it is the home-user base where the volumes lie. There are, for instance, around 2.5 million homes in the US that are WiFi enabled. While globally, tens of thousands of hotspots are being set up each day, the whole of India would perhaps have not more than 200, including privately commissioned areas. According to telecom consultancy firm Analysys, global WiFi provider revenues could grow from 33.4 million in 2002 to around 5 billion by 2007. The hospitality has taken to WiFi in a relatively big way, with even medium-rung hotels joining in. But most corporates prefer to wait and watch, depriving service providers of a stable business revenue model. Says Nitin Shah, MD of Allied Digital Services, which has set-up WiFi in big hotel chains like the Oberoi and the Taj, and is also WiFi enabling the Reliance Knowledge City, 8220;Certain companies have expressed interest in Wi-Fi, and and call centres are these days getting interested. But this still remains a niche area. We could probably expand it also the home market, but that8217;s in the long term.8221; But Sify is more circumspect. Says Appasamy, 8220;Currently, WiFi is only allowed in private spaces such as hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, offices, college campuses and so on. Public spaces are not yet allowed to be WiFi enabled. That severely limits access. For WiFi to really become mainstream, it must be allowed in public spaces.8221;

Another thing that works against corporate acceptance of the technology for the moment is security, and most products apparently have weak encryption that can easily be broken into. But says Ponnana Uthappa, country manager, Allied Digital Services, 8220;Wipro has Wi-Fi-ed its entire campus, and they wouldn8217;t have done if if there was such an issue. This is basically fear of the unknown. Ultimately, as prices go down, WiFi could very well end up in your homes.8221; But with the government stand on public spaces still unclear, laptop prices still above the reach of most consumers, the adoption of WiFi in India, in the near future at least, looks to be a limited one.