Bangalore set to go Wi-Fi

BANGALORE: During the US presidential election campaign, Democrat candidate John F Kerry termed Bangalore as a completely `wired city'. Now the Government of Karnataka is going a step further to make it a `wireless city'.

The State IT department has taken up an ambitious project to Wi-Fi the whole of Bangalore city to showcase it as a `digital city' in India.

The government has invited prospective solution providers for an Expression of Interest Proposal to implement a standardised and ubiquitous physical wireless infrastructure. This would mean creating an Integerated fully seamless wireless Digital for the city of Bangalore.

“The vision of `Wireless Bangalore' is to enable citizens to enjoy broadband in their homes, offices, schools and public areas. Instead of being tied to offices, homes or individual hotpots, people would have fast convenient access to information — and each other — from virtually any corner of the city,” said Shankarlinge Gowda, Secretary IT and BT, Government of Karnataka.

“In the initial stage, which would be rolled out in 2006, it is envisaged that current Wi-Fi technology would be deployed at an appropriate section of the city that would demonstrate the viability of the project,” he added.

Also, from a technical perspective, this would be valuable learning and experience into how such integration can be most successfully accomplished for further phases. The size of this area may range from a smaller pilot area to a more extensive deployment including overlapping hot spots and support for roaming.

The initial phase will see the deployment of current wireless technology and establishing Hot Spots; providing basic wireless access; establishing basic city web portal; developing a public IT plan and providing basic city network security.

The subsequent phases of the rollout plan would achieve full mobile roaming; Inter-agency interoperability standards established; seamless broadband access and on-demand identity integration on the WiMax.

Private companies will implement `Wireless Bangalore' and the government would just play the facilitator role.

“Already we have received proposals from IT companies for this project. March 27 is the last date to submit the proposal,” said a government official.