Look Ma! No Wires

Ten years ago, if you would have thought of going for a conference or seminar; it meant you had to leave office concerns behind. But, now it is not the same. Today,wherever you go, your office goes with you .e-Mails, phone calls and office documents float into your hands. And, this could be possible because of the development of wireless technology. Nowadays, through your cell phone, laptop or computer, you are connected to your office, even if you are at a conference .Nowadays, mobiles equipped with Internet services have become a need of every office goer. Even in the recent research, it was found that almost 70 percent of Indian IT executives carry high-end mobiles like Blackberry and others. Today, the use of wireless devices is widespread in India, and growing rapidly. “The demand for Wi-Fi products is growing in India due to more and more Wi-Fi-enabledequipment like laptops and mobile devices.Uers are enjoying the idea of connectivity without the wires attached to these devices,”said Shridhar Kadam, CTO, Digilink and Digisol.

Mostly, it is Wi-Fi, 3G/4G and Wimax,which have become the main technology trends in the wireless networking space. Wi-Fitechnology is gaining more popularity in thepremise of wireless and SOHO segments, withmore and more gadgets including laptops/netbooks, mobile phones and mobile Internetdevices supporting this technology. Now, moreand more everyday devices, including gameconsoles, music players, cameras and even cars;are being designed with wireless connectivityin mind. Wireless technology has moved froma convenience overlaid on wired infrastructureand managed in an ad hoc fashion to a mission-critical service that needs to be secure,seamless and flawless in coverage. In otherwords, it is now taken up to the standard ofefficiency and reliability enterprise, achievedon your wired networks.

Recently, terrorists allegedly used insecureWi-Fi networks to send e-mails, and followingthat most of the wireless networkingcompanies got the alarming bell, and launcheda new technology, called 802.11n. With this technology, one can take some relatively simplesteps to protect his/her connection from beingmisused. Many of the experts claim this newtechnology as extremely convenient, both inoffice and home, given that all modern laptopsand high-end mobile devices have receivers topick up these signals. Speaking on a similarnote, Kadam said, “Yes it is true. In Wi-Fi,802.11g is slowly loosing out to the new802.11n high-speed Wi-Fi technology. It hasbecome the defecto standard for all the newWi-Fi products introduced in markets globally.The product design either supports 150Mbpsor 300Mbps speeds for local connectivity withan increase in the range supported. Otherwireless technologies like 3G/4G and Wimaxare also gaining acceptance worldwide.”

Also, holding onto similar convictions onthe 802.11n technology, Jayesh Kotak, VP-Product Marketing, D-Link (India) opined, “Theratification of 802.11n standard has fueled the demand for wireless networking products.Wireless networking market has witnessed asubstantial growth in the last few years andthe growth momentum is expected to continuein the current year, as consumer, governmentand education verticals have been makingsignificant investments in WLAN deployments.In fact, many of the government organizationshave worked on making their offices andbranches wireless.” D-link offers Green-certifiedWLAN products both for consumers as well asfor business deployments. Further, D-Link alsooffers innovative energy-saving technologieslike Wi-Fi Scheduler that sets up the scheduleto turn off the radio signal of access points/outdoor access points during night time andholidays. Scheduled wireless allows users andadministrators to configure specific hours whenthe wireless network will be powered off tosave energy and enhance security.

The Indian wireless communications marketwitnessed unprecedented growthand set new records in 2009. Boththe subscriber base and handsetsales witnessed phenomenalgrowth rates and attained newpeaks. The momentum continuedinto 2010 and the auction of the3G spectrum opened newcompetitive markets for carriers,handsets, and network equipmentproviders. The prices have alsoseen a downward trend and thedevices are getting more and moreaffordable. By 2011, networkinfrastructure spend will rise tomore than $11 billion, thanks tothe rollout of WiMAX and 3Gmobile technology services.iSuppli's India telecom marketresearch shows that the launch of3G technology in the fourthquarter of 2010 is also expectedto significantly boost the sales ofsmart phones in the country. Notsurprisingly, a supply chain fortelecom manufacturing is emerging, withmanufacturers establishing local plants tosave on importing costs. Local productioncapabilities will provide manufacturerswith a distinct advantage in the price-sensitiverural Indian market, and various players alreadyhave announced their plans to further investin the expansion of manufacturing and R&Dfacilities. With users enjoying the wire-freeexperience the growth is definitely going toincrease over the coming years. In addition,favorable developments in telecommanufacturing symbolize the country's movetoward becoming a global telecommanufacturing hub.

According to iSuppli Market Intelligenceresearch, while the Indian wireless marketoffers attractive opportunities to global players,to the uniformed; the India market can beextremely difficult to navigate. The countryrepresents a unique set of challenges. Overallwireless revenue may continue to grow as themarket grows by leaps and bounds, but averagerevenue per user is falling 11 percent alone inthe quarter that ended in September. Thebiggest challenge is financing the industry'sbreathtaking rate of expansion. Cell phonepenetration is 40-50 percent in cities but hoversat a pitiful 2-3 percent in villages. Clearly, thefuture lies in India's rural areas, where about70 percent of India's 1.1 billion population lives.Let's take an example of Uttar Pradesh, thestate, which has a population of 170 million-about 60 percent the size of the US. As anindependent nation, it would be the sixthbiggest in the world; and include a whopping8 percent of the world's poor. Here, cell phoneoperators face the hurdle of setting upinfrastructure to reach villages that barely haveelectricity-let alone selling to villagers whohave little purchasing power to own and tooperate a cell phone. Even many of the leadingnetworking companies agree that securityconcerns and the penetration of Wi-Fi accessdevices in Indian enterprises and homes arethe two main factors hindering the overallgrowth of Wi-Fi. These companies believe,unlike other tech-rich countries, in India, Wi-Fi is accessible only in the metros.

Further, in a recent survey conducted bythe Police Department in conjunction withcertain software associations, the surveyindicated that in Mumbai majority of the Wi-Fi networks used are unsecured. After thissurvey, the Police Department initiated aneducation campaign to create awarenessamongst the public on the security issues andthreats posed by an open or unsecured Wi-Finetwork.As mentioned earlier, security still remainsone of the key concerns amongst consumerswhen it comes to deployment of wirelessnetwork. Unsecured WLAN's can be a gatewayof trouble not only for the enterprise resources,but also as a threat from virus and wormoutbreaks. Therefore, people are constantlylooking for solutions that offer end-to-endsecurity-based wireless deployment. “Howeverin view of the above, we would like to say thatthere are new solutions available in the markettoday to counter concerns on investmentprotection unified wired and wireless accesssolutions,” informed Kotak. This is mainly duethe concerns on investment protection. Theseare scalable solutions that provide securewireless connectivity and seamless layer 2 andlayer 3 roaming for end users. Awireless switch is introduced in anexisting network infrastructure toprotect current investments with allthe benefits of WLAN switching.

Even Nityanand Shetty, MD, EssenVision, shared his views, “When theWi-Fi network was introduced peoplestarted using it rampantly because ofits convenience without realizing thesecurity issues associated with theusage of these networks. Thedrawback of an unsecured Wi-Finetwork was highlighted during therecent terrorist attacks, when aterrorist send out a terror e-mail bymisusing an open-wire network.”Another drawback of Wi-Fi networksis that they are based on onepassword, which can always becompromised. Today, in the hospitalityindustry passwords are changed on aregular basis. Shetty believes that Wi-Fi networks should be available to theSOHO segment at a lesser cost,thereby, further accelerating their growthwithout compromising their security.

Many of the experts also feel that India isstill an emerging country as far as wirelesstechnology is concerned, and with largerpopulation of the country living withoutelectricity; it would be difficult but notimpossible to reach in another five years ofspan. Indian government has set a target tocover 97 percent of the country's populationwith the wireless network. Similarly, by 2014,mobile teledensity-a measure of cell phoneavailability-likely will reach 97.4 percent per100 persons.

SIKTA SAMANTARAY

(siktas@cybermedia.co.in)