Wireless Solutions : No Limits

In the past few years, India has been at the forefront of adopting new
wireless technologies and services, largely fueled by the rapid growth in
broadband penetra­tion. According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI),
Internet subscriber base for year ending 2010 is expected to be as high as 40
million. Similarly, the broadband subscriber base for next year is expected to
be 20 million. Moreover, as the wireless industry has been backed by the
Government of India, the country could see wireless market gain traction.

People in the industry believe that the primary driver for the growth and
adoption of wireless technologies is the boom in laptops and the growing
proliferation of wireless devices. Besides this, the industry has witnessed the
development of various applications on the wireless platform for various
industry segments, like manu­facturing, retail, health care, hospitality and
real estate, which has led to its penetration in the various segments.

The key

The growth in the wireless market in India is driven by all industrial
segments as more and more wireless LANs (WLAN) are being set up by corporates to
complement their wired infrastructure, and more pervasive wireless networks are
set up by many IT organizations.

“This growth in the adoption of WLAN is being seen across all segments
including commercial and SMBs. The growth of WLAN is directly proportional to
the growth in the usage of laptops,” said Pramjit Singh Puri, Business
Development Manager-Advanced Techno­logies, Cisco India and SAARC.

Wireless has enabled businesses to easily build infrastructure, while
telecom­munication-service providers in turn help in expanding the customer base
in rural markets. The emphasis on e-governance has also lead to its penetration
within rural population.

“The Indian market is one of the fastest growing markets in the world and
hence we see a lot of global players setting up base in India. The Wi-Fi market
in India is growing at a healthy CAGR of more than 25 percent. Compared to all
wireless techno­logies, Wi-Fi offers the best price performance,” pointed out
Jayesh H Kotak, VP-Product Manage­ment, D-Link India.

Bottelnecks

Wireless equipments are more expensive when compared to wired networks, but
at the same time the maintenance cost is relatively cheaper. Wired net­works
contain one of technology's biggest growing problems- wires. And these wires
usually need to cross through rooms and floors to reach the desired locations.

Adoption of wireless techno­logy, especially of WiMax in India has been slow
as the govern­ment has not yet released sufficient wireless spectrum. If India
releases spectrum in these

bands, it will enable local service providers to take advantage of standard
WiMax silicon and equipment designed for these frequencies.

Kemran Rana, MD-Central Asia Pacific, Netgear said “The high price of
securities, bandwidth, QoS, interference, high-end wireless equipment comes with
a serious price tag, proper site survey are some of the challenges foreseen in
the adoption of wireless technology.”

Security of wireless connec­tions is other issue surrounding the technology.
After the recent instances of terrorist using unsecured wireless connections to
send threatening e-mails, some wireless hotspots were closed down, especially in
public places.

“Linksys by Cisco routers are equipped with a variety of security features
that help protect users, networked computers, putting their security concerns at
ease. There are certain guidelines to be followed in order to have a safe
connection, including change of default password, enabling WAP2 encryption for
protection of data, disabling of SSID Broad and enabling MAC address filtering,”
said Suresh Balasubramanian, National Sales Director-Consumer Businesses Group,
Cisco.

The future

The coming days would be tough for wireless service providers as most
corporates have cut down their IT spends due to the slowdown. To tackle the
econo­mic slowdown, vendors are deve­loping training programs for the partners,
which helps them to be technically proficient and provide solutions to customers
in tough times.

Cisco Consumer Group is propogating the same. Balasubramanian added,
“Custo­mers are always keen to invest in products and solutions that boost their
productivity and enhance security during tough times. We train and encourage our
partners to provide solutions, which are built with consumers in mind, which not
only help simplify usability but also create a premium user experience.

This not only helps in boosting sales for our partners but also helps to
retain customers.”

Akhilesh Shukla

akhileshs@cybermedia.co.in