|
During the US presidential election campaign, Democrat
candidate John F Kerry termed Bangalore as a completely 'wired city'. Now
the Government of Karnataka is going a step further to make it a 'wireless
city'. The State IT department has taken up an ambitious project to Wi-Fi the
whole of Bangalore city to showcase it as a 'digital city' in India.
The government has invited prospective solution providers for
an Expression of Interest Proposal to implement a standardized and ubiquitous
physical wireless infrastructure. This would mean creating an integrated fully
seamless wireless digital system for the city of Bangalore.
"The vision of `Wireless Bangalore' is to enable
citizens to enjoy broadband in their homes, offices, schools and public areas.
Instead of
being tied to offices, homes or individual hotpots, people would have fast
convenient access to information – and each other –from virtually any
corner of the city," said Shankarlinge Gowda, Secretary IT and BT,
Government of Karnataka.
"In the initial stage, which would be rolled out in
2006, it is envisaged that current Wi-Fi technology would be deployed at an
appropriate section of the city that would demonstrate the viability of the
project," he added.
Also, from a technical perspective, this would be valuable
learning and experience into how such integration can be most successfully
accomplished for further phases. The size of this area may range from a smaller
pilot area to a more extensive deployment including overlapping hot spots and
support for roaming.
The initial phase will see the deployment of current wireless
technology and establishing Hot Spots; providing basic wireless access;
establishing basic city web portal; developing a public IT plan and providing
basic city network security.
The subsequent phases of the rollout plan would achieve full
mobile roaming; Inter-agency interoperability standards established; seamless
broadband access and on-demand identity integration on the WiMax. Private
companies will implement 'Wireless Bangalore' and the government would just
play the facilitator role.
"Already we have received proposals from IT companies
for this project. March 27 is the last date to submit the proposal," said a
government
official. Page(s) 1
| 
