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September 1: The government on Wednesday, 1 September 2004 cleared one more small hurdle towards unwiring India.

Through a notification dated 25 August 2004 but released on 1 September, the WPC has opened up and de-licensed the 2.4 GHz spectrum (specifically, the 2.40-2.48 GHz band), thus allowing the use of 802.11g within this band-indoor, or within a campus. 

Earlier, only 802.11b and Bluetooth devices were allowed within this band, which was 'partially' opened up in early 2003.

Since then, a number of vendors and others, including CyberMedia through its Project W initiative and events, and the Department of IT were urging the WPC (Wireless Planning and Coordination wing of DoT) to open up 802.11g too.

However, the restriction about indoor/in-campus use continues. For outdoor hotspots in public areas, you still need a license from the WPC, with violations are still illegal and liable for a penalty.

For users, the difference between 802.11b and 802.11g is largely that of speed. 802.11b gave a theoretical 11 Mbps, and a real-world 4-5 Mbps. Which means that in a shared situation, you could get speeds at the 1 Mbps level, or lower. This is acceptable for Internet access (where the backend is likely to be even slower, and shared), but not for office LAN connectivity, where users are used to 10 to 100 Mbps speeds. With 802.11g, there's a 54 Mbps theoretical maximum, or 20-25 Mbps in the real world. So users can expect speeds in excess of 10 Mbps in real, multi-user office networks, which is a lot more usable for an office LAN.

There is another way to get 54 Mbps speed: 802.11a, in the 5 GHz band. But this is licensed, and 802.11a devices are expensive and not as easily available as .b or .g devices. Besides, this standard has lower power efficiency, a problem that has to do with the 5 GHz band, resulting in lower range (100-150 feet vs the 200-300 feet for 802.11b/g). 

So, 802.11g offers the speed of 802.11a with the range of 802.11b. More importantly .b devices can work with .g networks and vice versa, though at 11 Mbps.

From the market's perspective, this opens up 802.11g access points and cards for sale and consumers can opt for hybrid cards too. While devices were being sold by D-Link and others, Cisco's Linksys .g products were not as easily available, attributed by the vendor partly to the .g licensing issues.

The notification also corrects a rule pertaining to selling or dealing in wireless telegraphic devices. There was much ambiguity thus far about whether dealers selling Wi-Fi equipment needed a license, even if they were selling indoor-use equipment only.

The current notification clarifies this and removes this ambiguity. It says that if the wireless equipment adheres to the radiation norms and the usage is limited to indoors, no license would be required even for dealers. 

The rider that vendors remain unhappy about is the low-power-level limitation. The de-licensed 2.4 GHz devices have to be restricted to 100 milliwatts of radiated power output (26 dBm), with a coverage area restriction placed "within the single contiguous campus of an individual, duly recognized organization or institution."

CyberMedia-publishers of Dataquest, VOICE&DATA and other technology magazines and CIOL.com-has actively tried to promote the use of Wi-Fi through its Project W initiative, including round tables involving the WPC and Department and IT, and seminars that have focused on the hurdles to Wi-Fi penetration in India, from regulatory to business model issues. One of those hurdles has just been taken down.

Anurag Prasad and Prasanto K Roy

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