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Campus Wi-Fi in India: Father forgive them for they know exactly what they do! |
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Written by Shivkumar Jagannath
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Friday, 03 August 2007 |
The other day, a prominent Indian Government Science Laboratory put up a notice inviting
tenders for Wi-Fi connectivity at their residential colony. We promptly
downloaded the tender specs from their website. The tender appeared to
be well written with a lot of care taken to ensure that only the best
solution gets selected.
On closer look, I was appalled to see some of
the so-called specifications! It indicated an absolute lack of
expertise in Wi-Fi network capabilities, and technologies. The most
damaging spec read as follows:-" Only one site (also called base
station) to be used to install all access points/repeaters and antennae
and provide access throughout the campus."The campus consists of 50
odd buildings, each of 2-4 stories height and medium vegetation. The
campus itself is about 1 sq km in size. I decided that the place was
worth a visit and some discussions with the concerned people was
definitely in order.The laboratory (like most Indian government
institutions) had an antiquated IT department. They even had a fancy
name for it: "Computer Facility Center". We couldnt meet with the Head
and instead two subordinate "Scientists" met with us.
I basically
asked to be shown around the colony where coverage was desired. One of
the gentlemen accompanied us to the Residential colony which was across
the road from the lab. On seeing the largest building there (about 12
floors), I went up to the roof of this building to get a Bird's Eye
view of the entire campus. What I saw wasnt very encouraging. The
building was at one corner of the campus and there was thick tree cover
all over. I quickly realized that there was no way that anyone could
provide coverage to the entire area with just one "base station". We
then went back to the IT department for discussions. I explained to the
two people that they must release an addendum to the tender
notification doing away with the requirement for a single base station.
The explanation given by them for this totally blew me away! They said
that they didnt want to be bothered with the maintenance of the Wi-Fi
network and hence if a single base station were used, only one point
would be required for maintaining the equipment.
This even after another requirement in the tender that the prospective bidder had to provide support services for 3 years!
I
tried explaining to them the fallacy of the logic. Moreover, I tried to
tell him that there was no technology that could provide access to
laptops and PCs in the colony with just one base station mounted on one
building at one corner of the area.
They just refused to listen to
reason! They said that it was too late to change the tender and it
would only involve additional paperwork and too much trouble and other
such blah blah. They had not even heard of Mesh networking. They kept
insisting that there were some experts who had assured them that they
were in possession of such equipment which could fulfill this
requirement.
After all this, I am left with the thought that woe be
to the poor guy who does win the bid. How would he go about providing
access?
All of the above just goes to say that the people/end
users who have the grave responsibility of ensuring that the
organisation gets the best solution based on sound technological inputs
choose to behave immaturely. I really wish people would take the
trouble of reading up on technologies instead of designing it for the
system integrator! What they dont seem to understand is that every
Wi-Fi vendor has his own architecture/philosophy of designing a
wireless network. By specifying a particular approach, they have
effectively ensured that only a couple of vendors can qualify. The
least that could have been done was to have appoint a consulting
organisation which would have helped the Laboratory make a
technologically sound RFP which can be realistically delivered by the
industry.
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