White Papers

Wi-Fi® in India: A Key Enabler of Economic, Social, and Community Development (2008)

Executive Summary

As India starts a phased build-out of its digital economy, the focus on broadband is noticeably high. The Union Budget for 2008-09 launched by the government is designed under the principle of ‘faster and more inclusive growth' targets a fiscal growth of 8.8%, with a strong rural development initiative - and an express allocation for e-governance schemes such as SWAN (State Wide Area Network), State Data centers, and Community Service Centers. There is plenty of impetus at the highest levels to trigger a strong broadband driver as the country moves into the digital economy. This augurs well for a stable, mature, dependable wireless technology option such as Wi-Fi, which is already increasingly deployed in homes, offices and villages in India. This report attempts to capture the growing influence of Wi-Fi in driving economic and social benefits in India by profiling some sample projects across the country.

As notebook consumption drives up to a phenomenal 21% of the total PCs consumed in the first-half of 2008 against a fading desktop growth of 3%, the promise of wireless connectivity is becoming reality. With 90 - 95% of notebooks shipping with built-in Wi-Fi, the addressable base of Wi-Fi-enabled client devices is growing steadily. As a mobile phone user base outgrows all projections and the mobile phone begins to become the most ubiquitous personal accessory in India so far, we notice a small but growing number of them carrying Wi-Fi capability. A highly mobile, young generation increasingly expects near-always-on mobile broadband connectivity and is willing to pay for it. These factors will drive increased use of Wi-Fi in India moving forward.

In an exploding real-estate market growing at 30% annually, where entire new townships are coming up in tier-2 and tier-3 towns, modern gated communities are beginning to crop-up in Silicon Valley-style homes. Organized retail is expected to add about 220 million square feet of space by 2010, and new opportunities to connect using unlicensed wireless technologies are surfacing. These opportunities are being targeted by high-tech start-ups such as O-Zone, which has already contracted with leading property developers such as DLF and Ansals. O-Zone will provide a slew of Wi-Fi-based services to residents, shopping mall consumers, vendors and visitors to these mega living and working campuses with a unique managed Wi-Fi network which is technology neutral (to broadband mode: cable, DSL or other), always-on and built around a rich eco-system of best-in-class providers.

On the rural front, there is a completely new twist to how Wi-Fi is being used. In these locations, outdoor applications of Wi-Fi in point-to-point mode is being used to haul an internet connection over long distances of rich green paddy fields to beam calculus classes to students of 9th and 10th standards in distant villages surrounding Bhimavaram in Andhra Pradesh. The Ashwini Project of the Byrraju Foundation - a leading not-for-profit organization, is transforming lives in rural India by using license-free Wi-Fi spectrum to provide employment, develop cottage industries and provide education. In the most compelling example of tele-medicine application, a patient in a remote Godavari district village gets medical advice from a top heart surgeon in Bangalore (over 1000 kilometers away) via a Wi-Fi connection to the internet over a video-conference set up from the Ashwini center. The doctor provides a diagnosis and treatment plan - all in a matter of 10 minutes, at an incredible fee of Rs. 20 (USD 0.50).

In a February 2008 announcement, Indian Railways announced that important rail-routes between metros would be made Wi-Fi-enabled together with 50 railway stations (twenty of which to be completed by March 2008). More and more hotspots are springing up as we see early stages of wireless broadband locations building out. Some large WiMAX deployment plans have been announced recently which will further trigger Wi-Fi connectivity as the technologies work nicely complementing each other.

Tonse estimates that the overall Wi-Fi market will grow in size from USD 263 million during 2008-09 and toward USD 891million by 2011-12. This figure includes WLAN gear, networking tools, professional services, Wirless Internet Service Provider (WISP) revenues, Wi-Fi applications that are being built for niche sectors, handheld terminals, and system integration services, but does not include chipsets, laptops, PDAs, cell phone handsets and other devices.

While new technology solutions (PON, WiMAX, ADSL) will continue to address growing demand for broadband in India, Wi-Fi will continue to play a strong role in sub-tending the last mile to multiple end-points - slashing costs, improving inventory management in organized retail, enabling faster check-ins at airport counters, medical services in rural Andhra Pradesh, creating jobs in a rural BPO, spreading education in hinterlands of India and enriching quality of life for many. This paper attempts to capture some of the action just described above.

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