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Plan afoot to make entire Delhi Wi-Fi |
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Written by Shivkumar Jagannath
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Monday, 23 July 2007 |
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The Delhi edition of the "Times of India" reported
yesterday that taking a cue from the other cities like Bangalore (now
Bengaluru) and Pune which are already rolling out Pilot Wi-Fi networks,
The city government's information technology department is exploring
options to ensure Delhiites have wireless net access on laptops
A Delhi Government official is also quoted in the article as follows
A senior IT department official said, "We are looking at a model that
integrates all the existing technologies like GPRS, Wi-Fi and
broadband. We are also looking at WiMax, which is the latest in the
field. The final decision will be taken on the basis of the economics
involved. But right now, our focus in on providing high-speed internet
connectivity to all in an unwired way. This will come at a cost. But
once the government enters the picture, the cost of internet access for
an individual will come down drastically."
This
is a very welcome step forward for a city starved of high speed
wireless broadband access!! However, there seems to be a tendency
amongst the so-called telecomunications experts in the Government to
look down upon Wi-Fi and at the same time be in awe of WiMax! I
attended a meeting recently in which a very senior telecommunications
officer in the Government innocently asked of the rest of us:
" Is the Wi-Fi technology standardized like WiMax? Does it have a forum like the WiMax forum?"
Like the old song "I didnt know whether to stand there or run!!"
There
are also many factual irregularities in the article, which can be
attributed to the reporter's lack of research or knowledge or both!
For example, she creates a major blooper in this paragraph which describes Wi-Fi:
It
is a short-range system covering many hundreds of metres. It uses a
licensed bandwidth to provide access to a network — typically used by
the end-user to access their own network, which may or may not be
connected to the net.
Whatever the above
paragraph means, it conveys a very wrong message to the community at
large. This is how I posted a reply on the website (though it has a
very bleak chance of getting posted):
"Dear Abantika,
You are wrong about Wi-Fi using licensed bandwidth. It doesnt. In fact
due to the pioneering efforts of people in India such as Dr Arun Mehta,
both the 2.4GHz and the 5.8 Ghz spectrum on which the Wi-Fi networks
can operate (802.11b/g and 802.11a resp) have been delicensed for both
indoor and outdoor use by the Government. This is to enable the common
man to setup and use the wi-fi spectrum. Articles like yours only serve
the interests of the incumbent telcos who are pushing the WiMax/3G
agenda while being fully aware that all of what these not-yet-proven
technologies can do is already in production use in many countries with
Wi-Fi."
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