Black Coffee and a Trickle of Wi-Fi

The Garden of IT's Eden has no cable, where the angels take wing on
laptops. Here, the bulkiest of Web pages is just a blur at searing 11 Mbps
speeds, the modem drawing an invisible branch down the Tree of Wi-Fi. But hold
on, that's happening largely in the enterprise space, even as the 802.11b
dream has slowed down to a crawl in Bangalore's public spaces. As the New Age
Wi-Fi connection vibes with the apple of temptation, in this case the WLAN
access router, the fault-lines between concept and demographics are narrowing
down very slowly in India's technopolis.

Too slowly, one might say. Lack of an active laptop user population, and
resultant public demand has all but whittled Wi-Fi access points in Bangalore
down to a handful in the many pubs and bistros, while Mumbai and Delhi lead
Bangalore by a mile in offering public Wi-Fi access. Cafe Coffee Day which had
started the public Wi-Fi movement with much fanfare has all but shelved its
Wi-Fi plans, according to staff manning the counters at the Bangalore-headquartered
beverage chain's outlets.

Against the backdrop of the Wi-Fi coffee failing to drip, Café Coffee Day
last month announced a masterplan for SHDs (smart handheld devices) to monitor
Wi-Fi access in its retail outlets. The plan is to fructify by July 2004, if all
goes well. However, observers now feel that this will go on the backburner.
"We have not seen the ideal mix of businessmen and other travelling laptop
users here. Students rarely use Wi-Fi enabled laptops, which cost Rs 65,000 and
higher. And, even if they do, they wouldn't browse en masse in a coffee café
because of slow access speeds. The younger crowd just wants to chill out,"
says a Cafe Coffee Day staff at one of the beverage chain's Bangalore outlets.
In fact, Cafe Coffee Day and Barista outlets in Bangalore have had little active
Wi-Fi to show over the last four months.

But active testing of waters on applicable scenarios continues. Cafe Coffee
Day pilot has involved waiters armed with SHDs who can zip your frappe order
over a Wi-Fi network to a point-of-sale terminal, which can record your order
and pass it on to the kitchen. That's quicker access to your Wi-Fi all right,
and some caffeine destiny as well, but where's the premise? Ask Sify:
"Well, usage is still limited in Bangalore. But as the number of laptop
toting itinerant professionals grows, we will see further increase in usage.
What we need to consider is also that for now, Wi-Fi will not be used for
general Internet access, like browsing. So it will never replace access from
home, office or cyber cafes, but instead be an additional form of access for
executives on the move," says Shrikant Joshi, president, Access Media, Sify.

A Room with a E-View

Most of Bangalore's 'star' hotels still have no grandiose Wi-Fi plans
running. While The Oberoi has had a WLAN network in place for over a year, the
only other Wi-Fi adopter is the Leela Palace, which plans to cut the cord by the
middle of May. Taj West End's Wi-Fi plans are still "evolving".
"Wi-Fi is still not mainstream in Bangalore's hotel industry. Security
considerations also have their impact in deciding the number of takers for Wi-Fi.
But the demand is growing. At the Leela, our international guests could not do
without anytime wireless access and so we had no option but to set up two
wireless access points with access speeds of 512 Kbps," says Jey Balaji, IT
manager with the Leela.

Leela expects the returns to be equally high, planning to charge users a
whopping Rs 1,000 for 24 hours.

Users are talking of lower access prices to drive usage. B P Holla, hunched
over his IBM Thinkpad, marshals the argument that lower Wi-Fi access prices in
the luxury hotels and airports would drive Wi-Fi usage. Very few are expecting
to see going-Wi-Fi-by-the-sidewalk scenarios unfolding any time soon, even as
Wi-Fi crazy business travelers will be the target audience for service providers
to lure with attractive pricing packages in the long term.

Leela: Hotel Leela, Bangalore, will be only the second hotel in tech capital Bangalore to step into the enchanting corridors of Wi-Fi. The hotel has invested Rs 3-4 lakh into its wireless network. Starting off with two strategically placed WLAN access points offering browsing speeds of 512 Kbps, Leela will upgrade access speeds to 1 Mbps by the end of the year Hotspots: The farther the distance between transmitter and receiver, the lower the bit rate in an 802.11 system  802.11g: Longer range 802.11g products from Linksys are ideal successors to 802.11b installations which have seen mass adoption in India. Of course, these are in for a long wait Café 2: The Cafe Coffee Day outlet on Bangalore's arterial M.G. Road which was the beverage chain's only 'hotspot' out of Bangalore was quick to dismantle its WLAN and court the wire again Intel: Intel's announcement of its latest update to its 802.11g/b-capable Pentium M processor coincides with analyst observations that the wireless LAN market has evolved Warchalking: Hoboglyphic (a 'hobo' is one who wanders) symbols are being increasingly used by road warriors in the US and Europe to identify access points offering free Wi-Fi. 'Warchalking' is a phenomenon, which has social and e-security implications Café: Wi-Fi and a lot of jazz at wirelessly networked Java City. The crowd, largely populated by students, is traditional PC users and prefer to unwind listening to the music

As for coffee cafes where disparate social groups converge, a degree of
discomfort sets in about publicly opening one's work documents or files on a
laptop. Says Naresh Mehta, a member of the IT jet setter club, "I notice
that allaying user security fears, and even the advantage of free public Wi-Fi
has not helped drive usage. I guess the concept works better in the enterprise
for now."

Hotspots to Download-Spots

Number one Wi-Fi equipment supplier Intel's international launch of an
update to Centrino this month could kickstart the power of the download via the
over 100,000 hotspots in use worldwide. Over 32,000 of these are included in
Intel's Wireless Verification Program, which tests the compatibility of
various access point devices and WSPs (Wireless Service Providers) with common
configurations of notebooks built on Intel's Centrino mobile technology. Intel
is tying up with content providers like MSNBC for its 'Wireless Traveller'
scheme to link jetlagged executives computing in 802.11g environments outside
India to their favorite TV programs back home.

While Instat-MDR has announced that 802.11g represented nearly 50% of WLAN
market shipments worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2003, hotspots in India
still run on the 5-Ghz frequency 802.11b standard. The government's laggardly
approach to ushering in 802.11g, which runs on the same frequency and is
backward compatible with 802.11b, is depriving Wi-Fi users of the benefits of
higher speeds and faster downloads and uploads. These form a significant part of
the browsing experience, feels Sify's Joshi.

But Intel promises to change that with its latest Pentium M (formerly code
named 'Dothan') upgrades. Says Intel's director (sales & marketing)
for South Asia, Amar Babu, on the occasion of the company announcing three new
Pentium processors to boost its Centrino wireless mobile initiative in India,
"Prices of access points have dipped to just a few thousand rupees today,
compared to March last year when Centrino was launched worldwide. In India, the
real markets lie in the home and enterprise segments which remain the key
drivers ahead for Pentium M."

Currently, 50-70% of notebooks worldwide are shipping with mobile wireless or
WLAN attaches, and Intel expects this to touch 90% by 2006.

Cable, Uninterrupted

Companies like Cisco, D-Link and Satyam who are spearheading the hotspot
boom in India still say that Wi-Fi will merely be a complement to the existing
network, not a total replacement. Exactly what it is at the moment, resulting in
the importance of network availability and speed being downplayed even by the
big corporates and SMEs -who continue to be the moving force behind Wi-Fi
deployments.

But things could change once Wi-Fi, as a secure and convenient way of
last-mile access, is shaped in the foundry of stronger standards. Wi-Fi users,
who still form a Lilliputtian 0.5% of the total computer user base in India,
reason that lower upfront usage prices and greater awareness on Wi-Fi will
continue to drive usage in user-intensive environments like airports and luxury
hotels.

There are other reasons to be optimistic. Overall Wi-Fi shipments in India
are on a galloping growth path. Shipments of Wi-Fi devices in India touched
83,000 units over the past year compared to 48,000 in 2002, and IDC estimates
that over 1.5 lakh Wi-Fi devices will have flooded the Indian market by
end-2004.

When the government does deregulate on 802.11g, the question of its
interoperability with 802.11a, which already haunts much of Europe and the US,
is likely to crop up. Transmitting in the 5 Ghz range, 802.11a can provide up to
54 Mbps, offering five times the throughput of 802.11b, but is not backward
compatible with the slower 802.11b as 802.11g is. Of course, 802.11g network
cards will cost 100% more, while the access points are likely to be priced at
least 50% higher than 802.11b equipment, add industry sources, pointing to a
churn in the WSP and WLAN equipment space whenever 802.11g gets the government
go-ahead.

Not Package-Friendy Yet

All talk of pricing packages in India are dismissed as too premature by
major equipment providers like Cisco. "Besides the complementary nature of
wireless services to the wired network, WLAN access points will require a viable
model for WSPs and more detailed market studies on user profiles before
largescale rollouts in the public space," says U R Acharya, business
development manager (India & SAARC), Cisco Systems India. With the Linksys
range of wired and wireless networking products for SOHO and small business
users added to its portfolio, Cisco is now working at further leveraging
built-in security protocols like 802.11X and EAP authentication into instilling
strong user confidence.

Enterprise hotspotters have been using built-in authentication protocols with
great gusto even as system administrators at fully Wi-Fied Wipro Technologies,
Intel and July Systems swear by the airtight firewall authentication and
security parameters shielding users in their hotspot ranges from the ravages of
blackhat attacks. Cafes were till recently swearing by the security aspect too,
but bad throughput and even lesser partons lead to them removing Wi-Fi
installations, like Cafe Coffee Day and Barista in Bangalore. The occasional
laptopper in these outlets now quietly sips away on his frappe, his laptop
plugged firmly into the nearest AC outlet.

"And, corporates who already have a network would not want to wire up
additionally when upgrading, largely by way of purchasing new desktops,"
says D-Link general manager (sales, south) Venkatesh Kamath. This would be the
opportunity for hotspot vendors to convince enterprise customers and government
agencies on the wireless advantage and its newfound afforda—bility. Home
networking is still a microscopic market within the overall enterprise (and
hospitality industry) pie, but has enormous potential for wire-free networks -
like sending digital music between computers and stereos. WSPs will persuade
home users of the benefits and the promise of "no new wiring" will be
compelling.

In the Enterprise Closet

Would a user court Wi-Fi more confidently inside his own company? "Why
not?" asks Rahul Pereira, stroking his uber beard as he works his mailing
list. "I know the systems people and the entire network is in safe hands.
Besides, I would have to attend meetings across locations inside my company
campus, and mobility, connectivity are key issues here." And, obviously,
key motivators for in-company Wi-Fi usage which dominates the overall user base
in India.

Cisco feels that the cafe notebook user will continue to weigh in on secure
access and firewall strengths. Here, Wi-Fi providers expect growing
authentication standards like 802.11X and EAP - to increase the Wi-Fi user
base inside enterprises with dynamic customer flow on their premises. As Wi-Fi
notebook prices drop over the second half of the year, the user base is likely
to go up at least 4% by end-2004, feel observers.

As of now, specialised technology education institutes in Bangalore like the
IIITB, Indian Institute of Management and a handful of engineering colleges are
strong Wi-Fi votaries. The students roam on free wireless access at 256-512 Kbps
speeds.

Many users feel that Wi-Fi is overhyped. "802.11b itself has been
stretched far beyond its original role. And, even then, the WLAN industry in
India is just finding its feet on 802.11b," says laptop user and certified
Microsoft Certified Professional Ram Karanth. Security is not an issue, the
20,000-strong laptop user base in Bangalore does not justify such a concern,
claims Karanth. "The issue here is: public hotspots never brought the
profits their business models promised and the Wi-Fi lifestyle is yet to catch
on in the lay-public domain."

"The initial investments and recovery of upfront costs are still an
issue in the cafes and restaurants," says Karanth. "Bangalore hotels
are becoming more forward-looking in their Wi-Fi plans, but they are still
finetuning things. Corporates remain the vendor's safest bet." Voila, the
few green leaves on a growing Wi-Fi tree.

Ravi Menon in Bangalore

Wire Less

It's no secret that the complexity of Wi-Fi could put off many. A humble,
and by no means comprehensive 'survey' of ten computer and laptop users in
Bangalore revealed that only two of them knew what the term 'hotspot' meant.
Excerpts from two 'case studies':

Dataquest (DQ): Hello there. Are you a regular laptop user?

Respondent 1 (R1): What does it look like, man? It's great stuff, very
convenient.

DQ: But I guess you can move around a lot more when there's a hotspot
around.

R1: Hotspot? What's that?

DQ: Don't you have WLAN access points in your company yet?

R1: Oh, you mean WLAN access points!! You mean it's called a hotspot?!

DQ: Hey geeko, can you define a hotspot?

R2 (without batting an eyelid): A place where techies congregate on weekends
and have a lot of beer.

R3: Yeah, remember the Beer Drinkers Association of Information Technology
started by (Pradeep) Kar?

DQ: Know what a hotspot means?

R5 (blushes): Very funny.

DQ: Funny? Why ma'am?

R6: Come on yaar, she's still a little girl. You know Nisha, those *****
things on the walls, some sort of radio receivers to be used with laptops.
Remember, they installed it in our office last week. I am not a techie, so I can't
give you a detailed explanation.

DQ: Fair enough, but you are a fulltime PC user and occasional laptopper
for the last six years, aren't you? Congrats anyway, at least you got the
meaning of the word right.

R6: Great.

DQ: And, by the way, those are not horns, they are antennae attached to a
base unit with an inbuilt server inside it.

R5 (bursts out laughing): That means they are not ***** after all!

R6: With your laptop, yes (sly wink).

DQ: Whenever your laptop's NIC (wireless adapter) is set to 'promiscuous'
mode.

Amen.