WIFI

A small step for WiFi

Though it is projected to grow rapidly in the next few years, the Indian WiFi market is still taking its first steps. Rahul Neel Mani finds that WLANs are being piloted by big industry, with mass usage yet to come

H S Bedi expects future developments to bring in much greater speeds while occupying substantially less spectrum

Wireless local area networks (WLANs) and hotspots are the current buzzwords. With the Government of India deregulating the 2.4 GHz spectrum, which is used by 802.11b, Indian companies are free to use 802.11b for setting up WLANs. However, all is not rosy. The cost of setting up WLANs still exceeds the cost of conventional wired set-ups by a substantial margin. Today’s dominant wireless platform, 802.11b, is slower than today’s dominant wired LAN technology, Fast Ethernet (11 Mbps vs 100 Mbps for Fast Ethernet). 802.11g is expected to give a 5x-speed boost when it arrives in force by end-2003. But compared to Gigabit Ethernet, which is already available, it’s still too slow for high bandwidth engineering applications. That said, 802.11b could be very useful for a corporate office set-up or on the factory floor. The other key area where WiFi is being deployed is in locations where it is difficult or impossible to set up a wired network. Rural IT projects such as Pragati (Pravara village IT project) and the digital Gangetic plain—an 85-km wireless corridor between Kanpur and Lucknow being set up by Media Lab Asia—make use of WiFi to go where cables cannot.

WLAN in India

Says N Balaganesh, an industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan (F&S), "The adoption of WLAN in India is still at the nascent stage. We see widespread adoption of WLAN using the 2.4 GHz frequency. The 802.11b standard dominates the Indian market." A recent F&S survey says that the Indian WLAN market was $0.8 million in 2002. This Lilliputian market is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 48.6 percent till 2009.

802.11a products offer five times the throughput of 802.11b, but they can’t interoperate with the latter. 802.11a network cards cost 50 percent more, and access points are priced 35 percent higher than similar 802.11b equipment. So far, we have seen mass adoption in the 802.11b segment, while very little gear has been shipped for 802.11a. The ‘b’ standard launched in 1999 is in its fifth generation of development, so it’s more or less flawless now. 802.11g is said to be worth waiting for as ‘g’ products will consume less power, work over a longer range, and provide better penetration. ‘g’ may also offer cost advantages, since lower frequency devices are easier to manufacture.

What makes the Indian market tick?

The government suspended regulation of the 2.4 GHz spectrum that it was earlier regulating with high licence fees. Since the spectrum was made free for use, and there is no licence fee for using it indoors, the market has started growing rapidly.

Says Amit Kumar, national marketing manager of MSNI at Tata Telecom, "WLANs provide mobility and flexibility. Wireless bandwidth is constantly increasing. The use of wireless (by users who need mobility) will thus increase." Balaganesh of F&S adds, "This is a good option for big companies and enterprises with recruitment pressure vis-à-vis infrastructure availability. Companies spread on different floors of a complex or building will see it (WiFi) as an alternative solution to wired LANs." Comments Sudhir Narang, vice-president, Cisco India, "Mobility does help in bringing efficiency and efficacy. Once you become mobile, you get extra productivity. WiFi also provides reach to various inaccessible points. It is very easy to change."

According to Sudhir Narang, mobility helps in improving efficiency, productivity and reach to inaccessible points

"The first positive development that will drive the WLAN market in India is the government’s decision to abolish indoor regulation. This will propel WLAN deployment," opines Balaganesh. Says Hilal Khan, manager, IT, Honda Cars India, "Ease of implementation, mobility of desktops and laptops, elimination of physical network cabling, and the lower cost of deployment as compared to fibre optics will drive the adoption of wireless."

Early adopters include the manufacturing, banking, government, education and hospitality segments. Hospitals and the small office home office segments are seen as potentially huge markets. Access points are coming up at university campuses (IITs, engineering colleges), software technology parks (STPs), and in the corporate segment.

But why was growth stifled earlier? Explains Balaganesh, "Government regulation required payment of WLAN fees per user. Dealers/resellers needed import licences, and awareness about implementing WLAN. Perceived threat to security was another factor that blocked growth." So have things improved now that this regulation is gone? "The price of deploying a WLAN in India is too high. People are still not ready to accept it at this price point," says Kumar.

"Wireless is not here to replace wired networks—it’s just a complementary technology to solve last mile access issues," Narang points out. Says Pang Yee Beng, country manager, 3Com India, "As the cost of wireless has come down, a greater number of small businesses also wish to share Internet access and resources without having the infrastructure of a cabled network."

States H S Bedi, managing director, Tulip IT Services, "There are limited installations of WLANs in the market. These have been taken by the premium segment—companies such as Satyam, Texas Instruments, Wipro and Infosys." N Jagannathan, director & CEO, Fourth Dimension Technologies, adds, "The hospitality industry is one of the early adopters offering uninterrupted, seamless Internet connectivity to guests."

Says M Arifuddin, area manager, Locuz Enterprise Solutions, "Wireless solutions span everything from general network access to specific applications in healthcare to connect mobile medical equipment, and in retail to get inventory status. They are also used in creating hotspots for Net access at public places like airports, executive lounges of hotels, and IT parks."

According to Hilal Khan, ease of implementation, laptops, elimination of physical network cabling and lower deployment costs are driving adoption of wireless vis-á-vis fibre optics

STPs are providing wireless access only in select conference rooms or cafeterias. "70-80 percent of users in these campuses are fixed users who don’t need wireless access. They don’t take work home or shift around. It’s only top management and senior executives who really need the benefits of a WLAN," says Raghu S, senior product manager, consumer product group, Acer India. "Most customers who are implementing WLANs are complementing their wired networks," according to Ramesh Narasimhan, executive, integrated technology services, IBM Global Services India. This has resulted in uptime and availability being downplayed.

Since licensing is not required within a campus, companies are opting for WLAN deployments within their campus although service providers are pushing the WWAN concept in areas where copper infrastructure is not available. "WLAN deployments are for inter-department and intra-department communication, and this can span multiple buildings within the campus for almost all types of applications," says Kedar Shah, CEO, Nirmal Datacomm.

Lt Col Bedi of Tulip says, "In the immediate future, 54 Mbps will be available in 802.11g. This speed is already available in 802.11a. We expect future developments to bring in much greater speeds while occupying substantially less spectrum, and permitting many more channels to be available, which in turn will permit greater density of wireless networks." Comments Ketan Barai, director, KeyBee Infotech, "With bandwidth hungry applications growing, future adoption will involve buying products that are scalable to increasing bandwidth requirements and adhere to wireless standards set by the WPC."

Unwiring the last mile

WiFi makes connecting to the corporate LAN a whole lot easier, and lets users work anywhere in the building or campus, which translates into a productivity boost. The application that gets massive hype nowadays is hotspots—public places where wireless access is available for a fee. India is late into this game; a look at Intel’s hotspot finder shows that China has dozens of hotspots in its major cities, but India is not even on the list of countries. But Intel is working to change that. Reveals G B Kumar, general manager, business programmes, Intel Asia Electronics, "Intel is seeding wireless hotspots in the country." Still, Intel officials admit that we’re not likely to see hundreds of hotspots in India in the near term. "Intel India is seeding large enterprises with access points and Centrino-based notebooks. It is also helping software companies architect wireless solutions for their campus networks," adds Kumar.

But WiFi is slow. The reason for this is that WLANs work on shared bandwidth. 802.11g’s debut later this year will help matters, since most vendors are offering 802.11b equipment that can be upgraded to 802.11g at a later date.

And WiFi isn’t cheap. The Taj Residency in Bangalore charges Rs 200 per hour for 256 Kbps WiFi access. Other pricing options include Rs 300 for two hours and Rs 600 per day. An interesting trend is that five-star hotels are outsourcing their WiFi work to system integrators like Convergent Communications to take care of the technical side of things, while the hotels stick to marketing the new service to their guests.

According to Amit Kumar, WLANs provide mobility, flexibility and with wireless bandwidth constantly increasing wireless usage will also go up

The emergence of applications such as voice over WLAN will help drive the market. "The lack of quality leased line connectivity, mainly in the rural areas, will boost WLAN adoption," says Balaganesh. Indeed, 60-70 percent of the capacity of the 350,000 kms of fibre optic cabling laid countrywide by BSNL is idle because last mile connectivity is missing. In cities such as Mumbai, class A ISPs such as Titan Broadband, Binwire and Sixth Sense have already started offering services to remote locations through WLAN. Says Narasimhan of IBM, "One can expect higher speed WLANs (higher than 54 Mbps supported by 802.11a/g networks), so wireless will definitely be an attractive choice at the access level." One possible solution is the 802.16 standard that works up to 31 miles without a direct line of sight to a base station at a shared speed of 70 Mbps. With DSL having distance limitations, this technology could prove to be the missing link in always-on Net access for homes and small offices. Of course, as it is shared bandwidth, it is not going to be broadband connectivity. As with cable, the network will slow down as the number of users goes up. This technology can be used to link 802.11 hotspots to create neighbourhood or even city-wide wireless networks.

There are many technological concerns which need to be addressed before one goes for a WLAN implementation. "Line of sight can be an issue if something comes in-between two locations. In case of a storm or heavy rain, the position of antennae can be disturbed. There should not be any kind of electrical or magnetic interference in between. Compatibility of different WLAN cards can also be an issue," says Honda’s Khan.

Earlier, WLANs were insecure, but now that’s being addressed by Microsoft with its WiFi Protected Access, and Cisco with CCX. By the end of 2003, the 802.11i standard will be ratified, combining the best features of both these wireless security standards. The market is projected to more than double this year, although from a small base. Wireless LANs may never replace wired networks since conventional LANs may always be faster. However, they will be very useful in campus networking, connecting villages, and perhaps even taking the Internet to urban households.