Bangalore: As India treads strongly on the e-Gov path and is fast moving on to the digital economy, the WiFi adoption in the country is on also on the rise, enabling social, economic and community development across the region.<!--more-->

As the Indian government enhances allocation for e-Governance schemes and aims at strong rural development initiative, there is plenty of impetus at the highest levels to trigger a strong broadband driver as the country moves into the digital economy.

According to the report ‘WiFi in India: A Key Enabler of Economic, Social and Community Development', this augurs well for a stable, mature, dependable wireless technology option such as WiFi, which is already increasingly deployed in homes, offices and villages in India.

The research has been sponsored by the WiFi Alliance and conducted by Tonse Telecom.

According to the report, the market for WiFi networking gear and services in India will top US $890 million by 2011-12, marking a 36 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2008.

This figure includes WLAN gear, networking tools, professional services, wireless Internet service provider (WISP) revenues, WiFi applications that are being built for niche sectors, handheld terminals and system integration services, but does not include chipsets, laptops, PDAs, cell phone handsets and other devices.

It added that growing laptop sales, rising broadband penetration and pervasive use of mobile phones for rich content transfer have become key harbingers of widespread WiFi use among a growing segment of the country's more than 1.1 billion citizens.

The report further states that as notebook consumption drives up to a phenomenal 21 per cent of the total PCs consumed in the first half of 2008 against a fading desktop growth of three per cent, the promise of wireless connectivity is becoming reality.

With 90-95 per cent of notebooks shipping with built-in WiFi, the addressable base of WiFi-enabled client devices is growing steadily, the report stated.

As a mobile phone user base outgrows all projections and the mobile phone begins to become the most ubiquitous personal accessory in India so far, the research noted that a small but growing number of them carrying WiFi capability.

A highly mobile, young generation increasingly expects near-always-on mobile broadband connectivity and is willing to pay for it, thus would drive increased use of WiFi in India moving forward.

Outdoor applications of WiFi in point-to-point mode is being used to haul an Internet connection over long distances of rich green paddy fields to beam calculus classes to students of 9th and 10th standards in distant villages surrounding Bhimavaram in Andhra Pradesh.

The report also highlights the role played by a non-profit organisations like the Byrraju Foundation in creating new opportunities of socio-economic development in rural areas through use of the WiFi technology; its Ashwini Project connects rural farmers to experts in agriculture, remote patients to doctors and young villagers to training and employment opportunities.

In yet another compelling example of WiFi usage, the report mentions the tele-medicine project in Godavari district that enables patient from the in remote villages seek medical advice from a top heart surgeon in Bangalore (over 1,000 km away) via a WiFi connection to the Internet over a video-conference set up from the Ashwini centre.

The report further stated that the doctor provides a diagnosis and treatment plan, all in a matter of 10 minutes and at an incredible fee of Rs 20.

Not to be let behind, the Indian Railways in February 2008 had announced that important rail-routes between metros would be made WiFi-enabled together with 50 railway stations, 20 of which are scheduled to be completed by end of March 2008.

"We have numerous members both within and outside of India who have set their sights on this exciting market, and clearly there is plenty of opportunity," WiFi Alliance Executive Director Edgar Figueroa said.

He further added that since WiFi is a powerful, affordable and proven technology, it is being used in innovative ways to aid the development of India's economy.

Stressing that WiFi has an important role to play in India's economic development, the Tonse Telecom chief executive Sridhar T Pai said that WiFi brings high-throughput, easy-to-use last-mile connectivity to homes, offices and public spaces and can enable communities and enterprises to grow and thrive.

Pointing the uniqueness in the adoption patterns of WiFi in India, the report said that WiFi adoption is likely to occur via handsets as well as notebook computers in India.

According to the report, India's more than 240 million cellular subscribers increasingly use handsets for entertainment and social networking applications.

With WiFi increasingly deployed as a feature on the handset and the WiFi hotspot footprint on the rise, many Indian residents are likely to use WiFi without ever owning a computer.

While new technology solutions such as PON, WiMAX and ADSL will continue to address growing demand for broadband in India, WiFi will continue to play a strong role in sub-tending the last mile to multiple end-points, the report stated.

The wireless technology would be helpful in slashing costs, improving inventory management in organized retail, enabling faster check-ins at airport counters, medical services in rural areas, creating jobs in a rural BPO, spreading education in hinterlands of India and enriching quality of life for many.
—iGovernment Bureau