Jamshedpur, Aug. 22 : The city is hooked to the wireless world.
Jamshedpur has become the first city in Jharkhand to have public WiFi — short for Wireless Fidelity — hotspots. What it means is that if you are driving down Marine Drive, you can work on your laptop or personal digital assistant — in other words, stay connected to the worldwide web even if you are inside a vehicle or standing on the sidewalk.
BroadConnect, a licensed Internet service provider, has taken on the task of “unwiring” the steel city. At present, Aashiana gardens, Mango, Bistupur market (up to Bank of India building), the stretch covering Adityapur from the Aashiana trade centre to Madhuban hotel are all public WiFi hotspots. By the end of next month, the whole of Bistupur will join the list.
Hotspots are locations that are WiFi enabled, which means one can log on to the Internet at these places without using cables if one is close to an access point. Of the nearly 300 public hotspots in India at present, over 80 per cent are in Bangalore. Incidentally, Mysore was the first Indian city to become fully “unwired” in 2004.
Does that mean that all one needs to do is to be in these places to log on?
Well almost, but first one needs to log on to the services of BroadConnect, which is setting up the hotspots for its domestic and corporate clients.
What would it take to make Jamshedpur a fully WiFi city? Twelve radio stations that will transmit and an investment of around Rs 1.2 crore. Currently there are four stations to cater to the city’s customers. A small 6’x8’ customer premise equipment receives signals from the towers to make an office space wireless. It also helps that the steel city does not have many skyscrapers, as more the number of towers, greater is the requirement of WiFi stations. “An average of 150 laptops are sold in Jamshedpur per month. There is a huge potential for wireless connectivity in the city,” says Vivek Tulsyan, chief executive, Maple PC and Peripherals, which owns the BroadConnect brand.
Tulsyan’s first experiment with wireless technology was on the cricket field, when he made the Keenan Stadium wireless for mediapersons coming from outside.
WiFi is now expensive, but the rates are expected to crash once standalone providers enter the race. In Jamshedpur, the cost factor ranges for home, office and industrial usage. The budget for home users starts from Rs 225 for a 10-hour package for a validity limit of 15 days. A package offering unlimited access for a month costs Rs 775. Offices can opt for a Rs-450 package for 20 hours having a validity of a month.
