Mobility is it: ISB's Director of Information Technology V. Seetaramaiah with some students

Twenty-three kilometres from Indore on the National Highway 3 connecting Mumbai to Agra is Mhow, a fetchingly landscaped cantonment town that used to serve as a war management centre for the British during World War II. Mhow-the name is an acronym for Military headquarters of war-is the location of the College of Combat, an all-arms tactical training institution for officers that evaluates new concepts in the areas of tactics and logistics. Wireless access must surely fit into that definition: the CoC has just deployed seven wireless access points making it possible for users in some remote corners of its 560-acre campus to piggyback its network. ''It is secure,'' boasts Colonel S.P. Kochhar, of General Staff Signals. Then, he feels the need for a qualifying clause. "Our vendors tell us so.'' The wireless network only carries information that isn't classified and India's relative inexperience in matters wireless means security may not be a concern for some time to come. The US has a thriving community of war drivers, ''wireless hackers who cruise the streets in cars tricked out with giant antennae,'' according to an article in Salon magazine.

Wi-fi in India is unlikely to become as popular as the other wireless wonder, the mobile phone. Or even come close. Visions of laptop toting road warriors seeking out hot spots, places with wireless access points, still belong in the future, if at all. Beyond the hype surrounding 802.11b, the wireless standard defined by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (See Wi-Fi: Some FAQs), is the reality of its usage in India, a small individual, corporate, and academic community waking up to its benefits, emboldened by a recent government notification that makes it alright to use wi-fi within a building and as a rural telephony facilitator. The buzz has it that it was technology maven Nick Negroponte who convinced it Minister Pramod Mahajan about the need to do this during a August visit to India last year.

That has made M. Harish's life better. The 40-year old business development manager at Bangalore-based Texas Instruments is a wi-fi convert. His laptop goes everywhere with him in TI's 3,00,000 sq ft facility-across conference rooms, the cubicles of his co-workers, the office cafeteria (it serves a mean appam), or, his own workbay. "Mobility improves productivity," gushes Harish. Companies such as Microsoft and Exel and schools such as Indian School of Business (See The Wireless School) and Amity concur. And the government insists that its ambitious Vidya Vahini project-it will connect 60,000 state-run schools-should incorporate the 802.11b standard. Wi-fi, here we come.

The Benefits Of Going Wireless

The concept of a wireless network that can complement its wired ones appeals to companies. It provides access to employees carrying portable computers and hand-held devices-who doesn't sport one these days?-and makes it possible to 'wire' temps and travellers. ''Wherever mobility is high, wireless networks will replace wired ones", says Sudhir Narang, Vice President, Cisco, a company that plays a key role in taking others wireless. ''It enhances productivity by about 15 minutes every day,'' swears one of Microsoft India's 125 employees who use the company's Wireless Local Area Network (W-LAN) in Delhi office. Then, there's the fact that a wireless network is far easier to relocate than a wired one. With companies such as Cisco, 3Com, Avaya, and D-link offering wi-fi solutions, going wireless is just a phone call away, and it doesn't cost much (around Rs 2.2 lakh for a network of 20 users). "Cost, which was a big hindrance in wireless deployment, is no longer a challenge," says Lt. Col. H.S. Bedi, CEO, Tulip it Services, a systems integrator.

The first step in going wireless is a recce exercise to define coverage, the number and location of access points and the number of users. The actual physical deployment is simple: take the access point out of the box it comes in, plug it to the wired network, turn it on, and adjust the antennae. It took TI all of two days to deploy wi-fi across the three buildings that constitute its Bangalore office. Unlike Bluetooth, a technology built around infra-red connectivity, wi-fi is a radio-wave technology: radio waves find it far easier than infra red ones in travelling through walls.

Evangelising wireless: Primus' CEO Tilak Sarkar at his wi-fi enabled home

Operating as it does on unlicensed spectrum, wi-fi is cheap: there are no hidden costs such as a monthly airtime charge that users have to pay. And at peak speeds nudging 11 mbps-a dial-up modem does 56 kbps-wi-fi is fast and furious.

Being Wirelessly Hospitable

Mumbai's Lé Meridien hotel had a problem. Its clientele-largely international business travellers-was clamouring for faster access. Worse, it wasn't happy at the fact that the wired network nodes limited access to guest rooms and the business centre. So, the hotel decided to go wireless. ''Apart from the innovation factor, this gives us an edge,'' explains its General Manager Julian Grooms. That's not an edge it will enjoy for long: Taj is going wireless across its 60 hotels and wi-fi could soon become a norm in the hospitality industry.

Wi-Fi: Some FAQs A tyro's guide to wireless fidelity.

Wi-fi hote: Le meridien's Systems Manager Pradeep Khetwal (L) with GM Julian Groom What is Wi-fi? Wireless fidelity is an increasingly popular networking standard for building a high-frequency Wireless Local Area Network (W-LAN) in homes and offices Is this the same as 802.11b? 802.11b is a wireless fidelity specification of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It is part of a set of specifications associated with the alphabets a, b, and g. 802.11a: The standard delivers a maximum data rate of 54 mbps and eight non-overlapping frequency channels. It operates in the unlicensed portion of the 5 Ghz radio band and is immune to interference from devices that operate in 2.4 Ghz band. 802.11b: In 1999 the institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ratified the 802.11b standard, offering data rates up to 11 megabits per second. It operates in the unlicensed 2.4 Ghz radio band. 802.11g: The 802.11g standard has been in draft form since November 2001 and is unlikely to be finalised before 2003. 802.11g will deliver the same 54 mbps maximum data rate as 802.11a, yet it offers an additional and compelling advantage, backward compatibility with 802.11b equipment. How does wi-fi work? Each wireless client computer associates with an access point through a radio link (newer portable computers have chips that have this facility inbuilt). The access point connects to the wired (read Ethernet) enterprise or home network through standard Ethernet cables.

The Wireless School Wi-fi is the way to be at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Adarsh Garg and six other students at ISB have just written a case study report on ICICI's reverse merger into ICICI Bank. An exercise in financial reporting, part of an eponymous course at the school, the case study is just the kind of thing that is expected of students at any good B-school. Only, the way Messrs Garg & Co did it was unconventional: with widely varying schedules and preferences in terms of workplace-one liked to ideate under a tree, another preferred crunching numbers in the warm confines of the library-the seven collaborated online over ISB's wireless network. ''This is a one-year course and time is precious,'' says V. Seetaramaiah, Director (Information Technology). "Rather than have students and faculty search for plug-in ports, we have the provision for a wireless LAN at select locations.'' In a school that provides each of its 170 students and 20 faculty members a Toshiba portable computer, a wireless LAN is not really a luxury; it is a necessity. ''We studied campus requirements and found that there were a few cluster points,'' says Sabyasachi Sen, Network Specialist, ISB. These include common areas in the student villages, the atrium of the main building, and the courtyard near the library. Now you know how that report got done. E. Kumar Sharma

Meridien's experience with wi-fi wasn't all easy going. The hotel had to position access points in such a way as to cover all common areas, and five floors of 36 rooms each. Most of the 10 access points the Mumbai Meridien boasts are within the hotel itself, although a few cling to the building's exterior leveraging the presence of windows and corridors and the capability of radio waves to reflect off walls.

While hotels will adopt wi-fi, don't expect to encounter hot spots in other public places in India such as airports. The picture of a frequent flyer zoning in on a hot-spot, paying a prescribed charge through credit card, and accessing the internet will still have to remain in the realm of sci-fi in India. And the retail market for wi-fi services, as Tilak Sarkar, the CEO of a wireless service provider, Primus discovered, is next to nothing. Sarkar wished to create hotspots in the Basant Lok market, Delhi's happening young people's place, but couldn't find anyone willing to fund the project. ''The public use of the internet still remains limited to cybercafes,'' rues Sarkar. Welcome to the real world.

Wireless Woes

Microsoft's love affair with 802.11b lasted till the company found out the standard was hacker-prone. Now, it uses variant 802.1x. Security and interference with other devices sharing the same spectrum apart, bandwidth is a constraint. "For work that requires a huge bandwidth, wi-fi may be difficult," says Colonel Kochhar. "There are bandwidth issues while working on larger applications," adds Milind Gadad, TI's lead network engineer. Still, for execs and senior managers who don't really require all that much of bandwidth, wi-fi is just the thing.

Till that fateful Negroponte- Mahajan meeting, the government insisted on regulating the 2.4 Mhz frequency. Wi-fi had to be restricted to one building, the company (or organisation going wi-fi) needed to obtain a clearance for every user from the Department of Telecommunications, pay a licence fee of Rs 4,500 per user per year, and await a go ahead from the Intelligence Bureau. All that's gone now, it's easy going wi-fi, costs are down (from some Rs 45,000 for an access point to Rs 8,000, for instance), there is no shortage of technology vendors, and the newer generation of portable computers (and tablets) come with chips that are already wi-fi enabled. Surely, it can't take much more for a wave.

with inputs from Dipayan Baishya