Special Focus
The Wi-Fi Promise
Driven by the rising demand for mobile computing, the introduction of wireless-N, and increasing broadband penetration, the market for WLAN in India is expected to see exponential growth
By Dhaval Valia
According to a report by the Wi-Fi Alliance, the size of the Wi-Fi market in India is expected to grow from $41.5 million in 2006 to $744 million by 2012, a CAGR of 62 percent. (This projection excludes embedded chipsets in laptops and other devices.)
During this period the demand for WLAN hardware is expected to grow from $23 million to $275 million. More than two-thirds of the Wi-Fi opportunity will come from systems integration and professional services.
Says Dipesh Mohile, Senior Analyst, Broadband Wireless, Tonse Telecom, the company which conducted the study for the Wi-Fi Alliance, “The main drivers for the adoption of Wi-Fi in homes and small offices have been the continuing drop in the prices of wireless routers and dongles, and the large growth in notebook computers and Wi-Fi-enabled handsets. In big enterprises, the principal drivers have been the preference for notebooks over desktops, and the maturing of technology which has enabled easier deployment. Going forward, the increasing penetration of Wi-Fi-enabled smart phones and the 802.11n standard will drive the market.”
 Sudarshan Boosupalli, Country Head, Ruckus Wireless India & Saarc, echoes Mohile. “The WLAN market continues to thrive driven by the influx of Wi-Fi-enabled mobile PCs and smart phones, and the more sophisticated applications which can be used on these devices. The growth of Wi-Fi will be further aided by the introduction of the wireless-N (Draft) standard because it promises wired-LAN speeds.”
According to the Dell’Oro Group, in 2008, when the overall enterprise networking market shrank, the WLAN market increased by more than 15 percent compared to 2007.
Observes Jayesh Kotak, VP, Product Management and Marketing, D-Link India, “Flexi-hours and a home-office culture have set in the tech cities, making laptop usage and home Wi-Fi necessities.”
According to Sriram S, CEO, iValue Infosolutions, a value-added distributor, the ratio of wireless to wired ports sold in 2008 has improved considerably at around 18 percent. “Over the last 12 months we have seen many of our partners deploy greenfield IT infrastructure projects with purely Wi-Fi networking.”
Even solutions providers (SPs) have seen their WLAN business increase. “The wireless to wired port ratio for network infrastructure deployments done by us in 2008 stood at 30 percent from 8-10 percent two years ago. In many sectors, like education and hospitality, the ratio is much higher,” informs Rajesh Mehta, CEO, Geo Integrators, a network integrator from Surat.
Demand drivers
Cost savings and convenience are the two primary reasons why enterprises and SMBs invest in Wi-Fi. Wiring the premises for LAN in cases where it is not pre-wired is cumbersome and expensive.
 “Over the last two years, the cost of building a WLAN has become significantly lower than wiring or re-wiring a building with Ethernet. The cost of running a single Ethernet drop ranges from Rs 12,000 to Rs 18,000. By contrast, a single access point can be deployed in a meshed manner (without an Ethernet cable) in a matter of minutes, providing service to tens and even hundreds of concurrent users,” states Boosupalli.
Also, the reliability of Wi-Fi networks has improved with technical innovations such as dynamic beam-forming which allows Wi-Fi signals to be constantly focused, directed and steered over the best performing paths, thus reducing packet loss and instability.
“The primary computing device today is no longer a desktop but a laptop or another mobile client which implies the need for mobility and dynamic connectivity which Ethernet cannot provide,” Sriram points out. “Particularly in the case of smart phones using enterprise applications, Wi-Fi is the only way to connect to the network as they don’t have Ethernet jacks.”
Vertical drive
While Ruckus has seen most of the demand for its Wi-Fi solutions come from the education and hospitality sectors, D-Link ranks the consumer, government and services sectors as the primary demand generators.”
Opines Boosupalli: “For hospitality and education, Wi-Fi is no longer an option but a requirement. Two other fast-growing areas are healthcare and retail. Hospitals are looking at Wi-Fi to improve the speed and quality of healthcare, while retailers are using Wi-Fi to attract new customers and run more efficient operations.”
Says Mohile, “The Wi-Fi market is getting truly pervasive. While education and hospitality are leading the charge, we have also noticed large deployments in the mining and automobile segments, and in large campuses and difficult terrains. Sectors such as IT/ITES and finance are adopting Wi-Fi for the convenience of allowing their employees to work from anywhere within the office building.”
Sriram believes the real estate sector is another opportunity. “We see this as an emerging segment because many large players are deploying Wi-Fi connectivity in residential complexes to support IP-based triple play services.”
Mehta gives an SP’s perspective. “Typically, there are three categories of customers who are deploying Wi-Fi. Education and hotels are segments where Wi-Fi is a must-have. The second category consists of segments like manufacturing and dairies whose requirements are need-based. The third category comprises those who deploy Wi-Fi for the wow factor in guest areas and conference rooms to impress their customers.”
Not so hot
Another big opportunity for the adoption of Wi-Fi is the public hotspot, though this segment is yet to take off despite several initiatives announced by the government and private sector. Right now the country has only 1,500 hotspots compared to the 127 million globally. “Although the public hotspot market has seen some growth, it has been much below expectations. This is mainly due to the lack of a viable business model for running these hotspots, but also due to the difficulty in maintaining networks,” explains Mohile.
Still, vendors believe that it’s only a matter of time before this market takes off. “With the number of Wi-Fi-enabled endpoints increasing, mature customers will be willing to pay for hotspot access. At present, airports, hotels and cafes appear to be leading the way,” says Kotak.
Biggest challenge
Security is the biggest challenge for WLAN adoption. Notes Mohile, “We believe that the perceived security threat posed by a Wi-Fi network may become one of the biggest hurdles to growth. The fear has been amplified by the recent terror-related incidents where private Wi-Fi networks were hacked into to send e-mails. Wi-Fi deployed at enterprises is extremely secure with 802.11i and other precautionary methods followed. But home Wi-Fi networks and public hotspots leave a lot to be desired as far as security is concerned.”
Boosupalli believes that the negative security perception about Wi-Fi is not based on reality. “The advanced encryption standard (AES) is one of the most sophisticated cryptography techniques ever developed. Each AES cipher has a 128-bit block size, with key sizes of 128, 192 and 256-bit respectively, making it effectively unbreakable. In addition, advances in the area of wireless monitoring now enable better protection against malicious snooping and intrusion.”
Seconds Sriram, “Managed WLAN never had any challenge on the manageability and security front. Only the unmanaged space had such challenges.”
Ajit Mital, CEO of the Lucknow-based SP, Acme Digitek highlights another disabler for Wi-Fi. “While managed Wi-Fi is secure, the standard practices of security and management as are prevalent today are quite expensive and cumbersome. This is proving to be a deterrent for SMBs. From the perspective of an SP, building strong firewall and IPS functionality to secure Wi-Fi networks requires investment in trained manpower; this could be a deterrent for smaller SPs to deploy Wi-Fi in enterprises.”
Mehta of Geo Integrators prefers to emphasize the positive side. “We are seeing big business in helping customers transition to high-end managed wireless networks from the normal legacy unmanaged wireless networks. The managed networks, though a bit high-priced, are much more reliable.” Indeed, Geo Integrators has started preparing for the next set of opportunities in the form of VoIP and video surveillance over Wi-Fi.
Going by the predictions of Tonse Telecom, there is little doubt that the Wi-Fi market holds much promise for SPs. Apart from the direct opportunities, there are many collateral services and solutions including applications such as Voice over Wi-Fi, IP surveillance, and services such as Wi-Fi certification and testing. |