Tech company says cost of carrying data through WiFi will be around one-tenth as compared to 3G, 4G. PHOTO: AFP
"WiFi will compliment data offload applications, which is something that all operators are implementing worldwide; India also has started working (on this) By the end of 2015, WiFi will be a reality in India. It will be there in top 20 cities in India, full coverage," Rahul Pandey, director - sales (SAARC Countries) at UTStarcom, told IANS.
WiFi is the popular term for a high-frequency wireless local area network technology.
UTStarcom, with its operation headquarters in Hong Kong, recorded a $160 million turnover in 2013, with India being the second highest market after Japan. The company has been present in India since 2000 and has worked extensively with private and public players in deploying telecom infrastructure.
"After 2G, everyone (operators) came to 3G and paid for spectrum. There will be a stage they will be running out of spectrum to expand. So, that is the time, typically, when WiFi comes in," UTStarcom chief executive officer William Wong told IANS.
"When WiFi comes in, the cost of carrying data will be around one-tenth. If they want to offload the traffic on 3G or 4G and move it to WiFi, the operating expenses will be dramatically reduced. That's what exactly we see in Japan," he added.
The company is working with a host of operators and they are bullish and determined on WiFi connectivity. "They will be doing in phased manner. Some of them have started in trail phase," Pandey said, declining to name the operators.
The company met Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg in September 2014. Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad went to Japan after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit. Prasad inspected the UTStarcom deployment there.
"We have deployed more than 500,000 hotspots (WiFi area), which means 1.5 million access points. The telecom secretary showed interest to replicate it in India," Pandey said.
The Indian government is extremely keen on speedy rollout of WiFi services in the country.
"No policy problems. We have met all the telecom operators and they are finalising their budgets for WiFi. The company is ready for deployment. We have expertise available. So it's not a challenge for us," Pandey added.
The company is focussing on the government's National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) that will help it to deploy WiFi in rural areas. NOFN is set to link 600 million rural citizens of India across 250,000 gram panchayats spread over 6,600 blocks and 631 districts through a broadband optical fibre network.
"We talk about affordable connectivity. By affordable connectivity, we are looking at things like what the country is already doing in 4G deployment. There is lack of spectrum. One of the quickest ways to reach high percentage of deployment would be the adoption of WiFi," Wong said.
"We did half a million in Japan in half a year. With NOFN on schedule, we could be coupling hand in hand with NOFN deployment. The minute NOFN deployment is done we can connect places with WiFi," he added.
Wong said UTStarcom's platform supports a very dense number of hotspots. One controller can manage up to 120,000 hotspots.
"Now we are looking at the government for acceleration in deployment in both public and private sectors. The Modi government is active in connecting not just the Metros but also rural areas. So, I believe they are taking the right steps. So India can catch up on the global stage," Shalin Shah, general manager, India operations, UTStarcom, told IANS.
COMMENTS (16)
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@faraz javeed: You are free to hate any one but my religion teach Sarbat da bhala translated it means well being of whole world and we always repeat it in our daily prayer. On the one hand you say that the Islam is a religion of peace and love and then you say I hate India where 20 Million Muslims live/
@Ch. Allah Daad: Indian railway stations and airports have free wifi.
@Jonsa: Perhaps you do not know that all village Panchyats were allotted rent free telephones since long and there will be no problem in providing Wi Fi.
Many states in India have the government services like electricity departments, local police, water board, road transport corp etc enabled through Internet and available for whoever has an internet connection - which is growing by thousands everyday. And almost all central government services like Income Tax, Central Banks, telephone, passport office, railways, airlines and almost all private sector entities like mobile operators all have internet services, making the lives of people much more comfortable than to wait in long queues. A lot of services like booking movie/thatre tickets, ordering food from local restaurants, and the enormously growing ecommerce market - biggies like Amazon, and Indian giants like Flipkart and Snapdeal - are fueling huge demand for Internet, which rides on WiFi, and 3G services.
And they say this is the beginning of the revolution that has already begun to transform Indian society into the digital one, on par with the other leading countries. Of course still a long way to go, but it has already taken off the runway and climbing rapidly.
The govt decision to build smart cities in a phased manner will give a proper structure to this growth, and this would be riding on top of the mobile revolution.
@Ch. Allah Daad:
No it is not free wifi . One has to buy subscriptions ,available in various data packs and duration according to one`s need . Speed is better than 3G ,but actually depends on number of subscriber connecting through your connecting node.
@Jonsa... Pakistan needs many more technologically advanced people like you....
VPNs are absolutely essential when using public wifi. Public wifi is not secure otherwise. Will they allow VPNs? India has been blocking websites a lot lately and is averse to encryption technology. It caused all sorts of problems for blackberry over its encrypted messaging service. Will they throttle VPN connections over this public wifi or will they allow free speech?
It will definitely help in good governance in fund allocation and utilization of fund and reduce to corruption in gram panchayat by real time data uploading and data tracking and future inspection which is one of the main objective of Modi govt.
One day Indian kashmir will become wi-fi or we can say Hi-fi and Pakistan kashmir..the so called azad kashmir will foreever remain azad from any wifi or hi-fi..but they will always have a sci-fi pakistan..lol...
I think there is a difference between full WiFi and free WiFi. In todays market economy there is no free lunch e.g. a coffee shop which has free WiFi, the price of free internet access is adjusted in price of coffee.
The big issues in Pakistani's are JuD/Haqqani's are banned or not. Or whether or not a new video of reham khan has come out cooking pork sausage
i hate India and hate Modi even more but have to agree from the time Modi has come, India is growing in leaps and bounds . I wont be suprised if India will match China by end of 2020. What angers me more is 2 articles side by side, wifi in 20 major cities in India, Load Sheddding in whole of Pakistan . I want to ask Zaid hamid and all his stupid followers who tell hum India pey kabza karenge aur radio Pakistan Red Fort sey challayenge, arey yaar India chodo, hamara radio karachi mein bhi nahi chal raa load shedding ki vajah, kuch to sharam karo .
In India, even common women are Internet literate? When 50% of population, that are women, are allowed to contribute to national GDP, the country prospers.
In India free Wi-fi is already available in Railway and Bus stations. Besides, they are laying fibre network all over india that can give 100mbps speed.
If it's true Pakistan should replicate or left far behind India. Time for imran to hold dharna.
This is called Governance for the people's welfare. Our politicians who are busy all time fighting with each other should take note.