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The Wi-Fi services have started making their presence felt in In dia. Signs of Wi-Fi services at airports, hotels, convention centers, cyber cafes, and coffee outlets are much evident. Most of the telecom service providers, including ISPs, have got on to the Wi-Fi bandwagon. This includes state-telcos BSNL and MTNL as well. Most of the push has actually come from ISPs such as Dishnet and Sify. While Sify has almost blanket coverage in Bangalore, Dishnet Wireless has also joined the race by launching a countrywide initiative to provide Wi-Fi services. There are approximately 250 active public hotspots in the country. According to an estimate, there are 200 hotels in India, which are Wi-Fi enabled. Almost all major airports are also Wi-Fi enabled. There is no doubt that a beginning has been made and the number of users is increasing slowly. Besides these public places, large and medium enterprises are also using it for their internal access. Then, there are home users who are using it.

Challenges
The idea of wireless Internet access has not really caught the fancy of Indians. For example, even though GPRS services have been on offer for more than four years, they have only a handful of subscribers. Lack of good user experience owing to slow data rate has been the main deterrent. Wi-Fi was thought to be a step ahead of GPRS for mobile wireless access, through laptop, as the technology allowed for much higher speeds. But, technical glitches, security-related issues, and lack of aggressive pricing have added to the woes of Wi-Fi users. According to S Kailasanathan, managing director, Microsense, "The main challenge faced by Wi-Fi service providers (WISPs) is to bring about a lifestyle change. Laptop owners will need to feel that Wi-Fi access is the best way for them to access the Internet, as they move around the city or travel to other cities."

Due to lack of any quality of service norms, the Wi-Fi experience that most of the users have is far from satisfactory due to several technological glitches. Pricing of the service and billing related problems persist.

According to Harish Chib, VP operations, Elitecore Technologies, a provider of convergent billing, provisioning, and customer acquisition solutions and Internet management solutions, "Finding a cost-effective and highly efficient billing solution, delivering quality of service, interoperability with other Wi-Fi hotspots or networks, and security are some of the challenges faced by service providers." There are challenges on the equipment front also. Says Chib, "Equipment vendors face the problem of larger area access with limited access points. This in turn translates into an infrastructure and cost problem for service providers."

Service Provider Push
For W-Fi service to become a success, it has to be on a large scale and users should get anytime, anywhere access. Things seem to have moved in this direction. The launch of Wi Fi services by the state telcos-BSNL and MTNL-is a step in that direction. BSNL's current focus is on providing wireless access to major airports while MTNL under the WiFine brand has made a silent foray into the Wi-Fi domain. But, BSNL plans to expand its Wi-Fi network further. MTNL currently offers services 12 locations in Delhi and Mumbai. In Delhi, it offers services at Pragati Maidan, India's largest convention center, where large number of laptop-wielding corporate users throng. It is also offering services at domestic terminal of Delhi airport. This was preceded by aggressive and ambitious rollout of Wi-Fi service by Dishnet Wireless, a division of Sterling group. After selling its DSL services to Tatas, the company is focusing on new areas such as Wi-Fi and WiMax. It is already providing Wi-Fi acess at Barista coffee chain, also owned by the Sterling group. Incidentally, since April 2005, Tata Indicom which started Wi-Fi service in July 2003, decided to discontinue the service and agreed to transfer the assets to VSNL for
Rs 2.99 crore.

Then there are companies like
Microsense, whose primarily focus is a revenue share model with hotels and coffee outlets. It recently entered into an agreement with Café Coffee Day to provide Wi-Fi Internet service to visiting customers. More than 50 Café Coffee Day outlets have been already made Wi-Fi enabled. Apart from this, it also operates services in 60 hotels across 19 cities, which include: Taj, ITC Welcomegroup Sheraton, Le Meridien, Park Hotels, Marriott, Hyatt, and Shangri La.

Favorable Regulatory Atmosphere
The Broadband Policy 2004, treated terrestrial wireless as an upcoming technology platform for broadband and decided to delicence 2.40–2.48 GHz band for low-power outdoor use on nonprotection, noninterference, and nonexclusive basis. It also facilitated the notification regarding delicensing of 2.40–2.4835 MHz band for low-power indoor applications, permitting use of all technologies, which inter alia include those based on IEEE 802.11b and 802.11g standards.

Further, the government has also decided in principal to delicense the 5.15–5.35 GHz band for the indoor use of low power Wi-Fi systems. For the purpose of outdoor use, the band 5.25–5.35 GHz would also delicensed in consultation with the DoS (department of space). It was also decided that delicensing of the band 5.15-5.25 GHz would be considered after the process of vacation.

Local Government Initiatives
Apart from service providers, there has been increased enthusiasm amongst the state governments and smaller cities towards Wi-Fi. Mysore has become one of the few cities in the world with a citywide wireless Internet network. The solution was provided by WiFiyNet. More such initiatives are likely to accelerate the growth of Wi-Fi citywide network.

Simplify the Process
Service providers and the location owners (hotels, airports, etc.) need to work together to simplify the procedure for cutomers to get hooked onto to a Wi-Fi network. Currently, the customers are experience immense difficulties, as donot have access to any information about the availability of Wi-Fi service and the ways of using it. The process of getting a Wi-Fi card and hooking on to the network should be streamlined to provide hassle-free access to the corporate users. The ideal situation would be a prepaid card, which can work across locations and multiple hotspots, just like roaming on a mobile network.

Sudesh Prasad