CyberMedia regional offices go Wi-Fi

NEW DELHI: With the first publishing house in India deploying Wi-Fi, wireless has entered the Indian media. Even though, it is still early for Wi-Fi usage in most corporates, wireless data could be the second major technology to significantly impact the media. The first, of course, was desktop publishing in the mid-1980s.

CyberMedia, India's oldest and largest technology publisher, has deployed Wi-Fi at all its major offices across the country - Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. It’s head office in Gurgaon, Cyber House, has had Wi-Fi in place since last year. Wi-Fi had been deployed as a test platform in CyberMedia Labs in 2002.

Several editors at CyberMedia have been using Wi-Fi on their laptops for over two years and more recently in their homes along with broadband service. At present, over 15 percent of the 300-plus PCs across CyberMedia are laptops and they are accessing the Wi-Fi networks at the offices.

With notebooks getting cheaper in 2004, the number of laptops at CyberMedia will increase in the next few months. This trend is likely to be seen in other media houses, as cheaper laptops filter down the ranks and journalists begin to use them. The key driver behind this wireless wave has been the reduction in prices in 2003-04.

Today, one can deploy Wi-Fi across 300 PCs at less than Rs 10 lakhs. From desktop publishing, bulletin boards and websites going the wireless way today, CyberMedia has always adapted to the latest technologies much before the herd. Outside the office, CyberMedia' s editors use Reliance phones or GTRAN cards to connect their laptops to the Internet at over 100 kbps, at less than 40 paise a minute. On the road, Wi-Fi is also usable in some locations in India, such as five-star hotels, though the charges can be quite high. Such wireless technologies are changing the speed with which news reports and stories are filed and processed. "They are also changing the way the enterprise works," says Pradeep Gupta, managing director of CyberMedia.

"For instance, most of the company's processes are handled over email, from leave applications to editorial discussions and the 24x7 wireless connectivity, has freed our editors and managers from being at specific locations while still being a part of the connected enterprise."

© Reuters