The Indian Express has two articles today showcasing the state of wireless Internet access in India. They could not be more contrasting.
One article talks about the burgeoning use of WiFi by the upper middle class, especially in Mumbai and Bangalore. It’s exciting to know that entire residential complexes (Hiranandani – the real big builders – are profiled in here) are being provided with ready-to-use wireless Internet access. Further, the major vendors of traditional Internet access are WiFi-aware, and WiFi-ready too. For instance, Hathway and AirTel are already offering WiFi installation services. And at least in the major cities – Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Pune, malls, cafes and bookstores seem to have wireless access enabled. Judging by the prices they’ve quoted in the article, WiFi internet access doesn’t seem outrageously expensive too.
There are only two bottlenecks to wireless internet access exploding in India.
One is the abysmally low percentage of computer owners who possess a laptop. According to the article, one percent of computer owners in India own a notebook computer. I think that’s about to change, though. Notebooks are now available in India around the Rs. 50000 mark, which is quite affordable for most. (I must also add that you can now purchase an amazingly powerful Pentium 4-based desktop PC for around Rs. 18000!) When I was researching notebooks for my eventual purchase of this ThinkPad, I found that most mid-range laptops, by local vendors like Zenith, and others like Acer, were available for as little as Rs. 40000. Certain Compaq models were next in line, costing about 50000-65000 (although HP has really high-end models too). So for an average middle-class family, buying a notebook computer should seem a natural choice.
By throwing open the doors for widespread rollouts of outdoor WiFi networks, Notebook computer penetration and wireless access ubiquity could piggyback on each other in a psoitive feedback loop once we’ve reached a critical mass of consumers.
The other problem is far more serious. That problem is the Indian Government. This other article talks about the ridiculous restrictions that have been imposed on outdoor use of WiFi. Here’s a quote:
Before buying equipment, he says he waits for an ‘in-principle’ clearance from the Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing of the Department of Telecommunications and a visit by the local police.
“Next, the standing advisory committee on radio frequency allocation must agree,” he says. “Sometimes they meet once in two months and your application doesn’t come up that day. We provide 30-35 application copies for all members.”
Then he waits for an operating licence.
It’s clear that the laws governing wireless Internet access are out-of-date. Here’s the current procedure for a licence for outdoor wireless access:
- “In-principle” approval from the Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing of the DoT,
- Visit by the local police,
- Approval from Standing Advisory Committee on radio frequency allocation,
- Issue of operating licence.
It takes up to a year for this kind of licence to be issued. For most businesses, that is simply too long. If the Government decides, once and for all, a spectrum for general outdoor wireless access, all of these steps could be eliminated. The Government must realise that the above method is simply not scalable. That is, once the number of applications increase, no committee is going to be able to scrutinise applications the way it is possible now. The police will be unable to keep visiting every locality. Actually, why the police need to be involved even today is uncertain.
Licences for wireless access smack of the licence-quota raj that was the hallmark of Indian business till the New Industrial Policy was announced in 1991. All the Government ought to be doing is defining “policy”, not “mechanism”. Incidentally, this a design principle for a lot of successful systems software, and it applies to this situation too. What it means is that the Government should simply formulate a set of guidelines that any WiFi internet access provider must adhere to. This should include the spectrum he/she must use, among others. Once this framework is in place, though, how the provider implements the wireless rollout, the tariffs for Internet access, et al is none of the Government’s business.
In a mature environment for wireless internet access, anyone with the equipment should be able to start a wireless network. It would simply be like a number of private intranets. To utilise the bandwidth offered by a wireless network, you’d need to log into the network. There are simple methods to implement this. Today, wireless network points trap http requests from hosts. If it is an unregistered host, a login/registration page is sent to it (the host), which will show up in a browser window. Very simple and elegant.
There are so many companies, notably Reliance and Hughes Telecom, which have begun digging up roads in most cities to lay their fibre-optic cables. While no one can fault these companies for the end aim – to provide cheap broadband Internet access, crisscrossing cities with subterrannean wires is madness. Especially when WiFi is an infinitely cleaner way to achieve the same thing. I wrote to the editor of the Indian Express two years ago, when Reliance first started this ambitious project. The letter was never published. It’s amusing to see this article so long after my letter, making the same points I had!
Finally, WiFi (or its long distance variant WiMax) is the best way to address the problem of rural connectivity. We have too many Government committees exploring how to “bring the information revolution to the underpriviledges masses” – in simple terms, ubiquitious rural internet access. But they’re all thinking in terms of expensive wired links. The only reason for doing that is to ensure that BSNL gets to play a major role here. BSNL has the largest wired network by far, in this country (much of it due to monopolistic restrictions, but that is not the point here). So it makes sense for the Government to make use of the infrastructure already available. Whether broadband over copper is actually feasible will be judged by how BSNL’s broadband initiative in the metros fares. But is it a good long-term strategy? A few villages in India still have only one phone connection for the entire village, and most have only a handful. How ubiquitious can Internet access get, with this kind of rural penetration?
Now I’m not aware of the kind of bandwidth that broadband over copper can provide. I’m thinking of a dual copper/WiFi infrastructure. We could have multiple broadband connections over existing copper infrastructure leading up to a village. These could then serve as starting points for a lot of WiFi connections. We could have a wireless hub/switch connected to the machine where these copper wires end, and enable multiple wireless connections from there. The “last mile” of the telephone network would become the “last but one” mile, with the actual end point as the wireless link. This is the kind of public/private collaboration the present Congress/Left Government would drool at.
The technology exists right now. So do the ideas, as do business models. The consumer’s been ready a while too. The only person that’s asleep is at the wheel – the Babu at the Department of Telecommunications. We need to sound a wake-up call before the WiFi moment passes us by.