The Wi-Fi market in India has seen multifold growth in the last fiscal and is expected to grow at a similar pace this year. Globally too, wireless has emerged as a growth driver in most countries. In India, broadband has just started to pick up and there is lot more to come.

Since broadband is the stepping stone to wireless LAN, specially in SOHOs and home users, the wireless market in India has a very bright future. While initially the response to public Wi-Fi services was tepid owing to quality of service issues, in recent past, there has been an increase in usage with service provider viewing this as a lucrative service option.

The recent announcements by the government to delicense the 2.4GHz and 5.1GHz bands, on which the Wi-Fi platform works and with incumbents like BSNL and MTNL looking at this space actively, the adoption is set to grow.

Ranajoy Punja, VP-Business Development, Advanced Technologies, Cisco, India and SAARC stated, "The market in India has been growing at a compound annual growth rate of 40 percent and is expected continue to grow in the same vein. The Wi-Fi network mechanism market is presently around $40 million and should touch around $275 million in 2011. The overall Wi-Fi market is growing at an even bigger pace and promises to take off as a whole host of professional and customization services are beginning to grow."

Wi-Fi in India
India follows the standards set by the Wi-Fi Alliance and all products have to be in compliance with these standards. The present standards followed by the Wi-Fi vendors are based on IEEE's 802.11 b, a and g technology which is based on the speed in Mbps and maximum distance covered.
These standards are also adhered to and implemented by the wireless planning and coordination (WPC) wing of the department of telecom (DoT). Intel has also been actively involved in pushing these standards in the country.

Ramdev Sharma, Chief Technology and Marketing Officer, Huawei Telecommunications India said, "Wi-Fi creates hotspots that provide wireless connectivity for computing. It is based on the popular WLAN technologies and is governed by the 802.11a/802.11b/802.11g WLAN standards and their evolutions. More than a year ago, the government of India had delicensed the use of 2.4GHz and 5.1GHz frequency bands for proliferation of WLAN Wi-Fi. Since then, the number of Wi-Fi enabled hotspots has increased manifold."

D-Link's strategies are broadly based on customer education, technology promotions, user friendliness, ease of installation and good after sales support. The company's strategies of Wi-Fi developments in India are specific to each segment like the SOHO, SMBs and home users segments for wireless. Apart from these, channels also play a major role in taking this technology to their targeted set of customers.

Huawei provides a very wide spectrum of WLAN products and solutions for Wi-Fi networking and connectivity including WLAN hardware, software, security solutions, billing solutions, and system integration services. India being one of the strategic markets globally, Huawei provides end-to-end customized solutions to the customers bringing complimentary products, technologies and solutions to the forefront. Huawei has also launched WiMax, which is complimentary to Wi-Fi helping the proliferation of broadband penetration in India.

Wi-Fi is not new to India and has been deployed in enterprises, campuses and hotels for some time now. However, the promise for the wide spread adoption of this technology remained unfulfilled primarily due to the high costs of data circuits and high bandwidth costs. This changed significantly during the last year with a general drop of over 70 percent in data link prices. Customers are rapidly becoming aware of this technology and also adapting it very fast. There has been a considerable growth in the adoption ratio of this technology across all segments.

Sharma, however opined, "Compared to the global market, India is still in its infancy. However, as the growth drivers become more widespread and broadband becomes more critical, Wi-Fi market will witness a sustained growth."

Roadblocks
There are certain challenges with regard to mobility, roaming, complexity of billing, deregulation of voice over Wi-Fi, scarcity of spectrum, vulnerable security, complex authentication, quality of service and slow PC penetration. While enterprise wireless deployments have taken off in a big way with verticals such as hospitality, manufacturing and academic institutions having already adopted it, the response to public hotspots is moderate.
Some steps need to be taken by the government to remove the barriers that have arisen such as low power level-the de-licensed 2.4GHz devices should be restricted to 100 million watts of radiated power output (26dBm). Hotspots in public areas still need licenses from the WPC and violations are illegal and liable for penalty. The outdoor use of the same spectrum requires a license. Also, the spill over of signals to a public area (like roads or streets) is liable to punishment.

Punja informed that the other triggers for adoption of Wi-Fi include the rationalization of tariffs, decreasing cost of handhelds and proliferation of smart devices. Tushar Sighat, VP-Channel Business, India and SAARC, D-link however opined, "I do not see many of hurdles for this technology except the speed at which broadband connections get deployed in our country."

Opportunities for partners
Creating a Wi-Fi hotspot, it requires WLAN hardware, software, security solutions, billing and applications. Designing and building the Wi-Fi network requires strong systems integration capabilities. Therefore, the entire ecosystems, which comprise of hardware, software and system integration services providers, benefit as the market grows from $41 million in 2006 to $745 million in 2012, as estimated by Tonse Telecom.
Punja indicated, "Wi-Fi certification and testing services, new application development like in the area of voice over Wi-Fi, WiMax etc will also provide huge opportunities to many Indian partners and vendors of this technology in the near future."

The road ahead
Increasing number of Wi-Fi end-points will drive public domain hotspots across the country. With most computing devices, including notebooks, PDAs and cell phones, geared to eventually connect to wireless networks, Wi-Fi is expected to become an even bigger and hotter technology for both homes and businesses in the years to come. However for the Wi-Fi revolution to take off, the industry would have to address issues such as spectrum, tariff pricing, security, and quality of service delivery.

Government initiatives and commitments for broadband and unwiring the cities are ambitious and positive attempts.

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