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India
Telecom
March
2, 2004
Empowering rural broadband with Wi-Fi
Geetanjali Wadhwa & Pradeep Chakraborty
NEW
DELHI -- The wireless revolution is upon us. Mobile
data connectivity needs of professional portable PC
users are driving the initial strong growth in the WLAN
equipment market. The increase in WLAN-enabled mobile
PCs and PDAs will drive demand for WLAN access in a
variety of locations and support mobile access to business
applications. As WLAN equipment prices continue to fall
and speed increases, wireless solutions will become
a viable alternative to wired LANs in small premises.
This is because bandwidth demands are lower in small
sites and the cost of wired Ethernet is higher than
in larger premises.
Speaking at a recently organised conference by MAIT
on Wi-Fi: Unshackling computing, Lt. Col. (Retd) H.S.
Bedi, managing director, Tulip IT Services Ltd., pointed
out that Wi-Fi is primarily an indoor WLAN, although
indoor bridges are also available that work on the same
protocol. Devices having internal/built-in antenna and
with a maximum power of 100mW are permitted within the
country on non-interference and non-protection basis.
The network should be either indoors or within a single
continuous campus of a duly recognised institution.
According to him, today, all organisations want to connect,
for which the options include leased lines that give
good response times, but poor uptimes. It is possible
to overcome the poor uptime in a leased line by creating
mesh architecture. Intra-city infrastructure of leased
lines, other than few metros, is non-existent or extremely
unreliable. VSATs provide high delay, have poor bandwidth
and are not suitable for core applications. VPNs are
similar to leased lines, having higher uptimes but are
dependent on the last mile. On the contrary, wireless
is suitable for intra-city connectivity up to 60km.
However, it is the only reliable solution guaranteeing
over 99 percent uptimes.
Tulip recently initiated the Akshaya project in Mallapuram
district of Kerala. It is one of the most ambitious
ICT programs ever attempted in developing countries.
Implemented by the IT department, government of Kerala,
with private sector participation, it is an endeavor
to bridge the digital divide in the state. It will propel
Kerala as India's foremost knowledge society, impart
basic IT literacy to at least one member in each one
of the 65-lakh families, generate and distribute locally
relevant content, improve public delivery of services,
and catalyse all sectors of the IT industry in the state.
The project plans to establish 6,000 information centers
in the state and provide employment opportunities to
30,000 people.
The network will deliver high bandwidth scalability
-- starting as low as 16Kb and scale up to 8Mb, voice
services and bandwidth-on-demand. It supports streaming
video, such as e-learning programs, as well. It is possible
to run additional services such as video, e-governance
and rural mobile telephony on the network.
Commenting on the dictates of terrain on the use of
wireless, Lt. Col. Bedi pointed out that the non-line-of-sight
(NLOS) operations are based on reflected RF radiations.
However, vegetation is non-RF reflecting and a good
absorber of radiation. The topology of east to west
ridgelines and north to south roads created difficulty
in reaching areas and reverse slope locations. Reaching
these locations required overlapping cells, more base
stations and use of repeaters.
Contact:
Tulip IT Services Pvt. Ltd.
Tel: +91-11-2464-8001
sales@tulipit.com
www.tulipit.com
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