‘Wireless LAN effective for rural connectivity’

MUMBAI: Using the unlicensed spectrum creatively can catapult India into the

top league in telecom revolution, says Nicholas Negroponte, the chief of the

celebrated Media Lab, MIT. Strongly advocating the cause of wireless LAN

(802.11) technology, he said wireless LAN can be stretched up to 20 miles and

effectively used for rural connectivity.

Negroponte was delivering a keynote address on the topic "The future of

telecommunications: How India can lead it", organized by TiE. "Wirless

LAN has grown from desktops to Ethernet-like systems, using the unlicensed

spectrum. Such ad-hoc networks are growing at a fast pace and it wouldn't hurt

the bottomline of telcos if they also join the game", he said.

Pointing out that worldwide telecom industry is going through a phase where

its business model is in trouble, Negroponte said that in the next 2 to 4 months

astonishing decisions would be made in the arena of next generation wireless.

"At the moment, third generation (3G) wireless system is turning out to be
harder to implement. Now, you have big telcos holding licenses to use 3G, which

cost them a fortune. They want to roll out 3G sooner but I don't think it is

good enough for people to switch over. The only solution is to let these telcos

to use the spectrum for whatever they want and it might happen in the next 3 or

4 months."

He also urged India to revisit or skip 3G and concentrate on the job at hand:
Building out 2 or 2.5G networks. "The absence of telecom infrastructure is

an opportunity. Take Korea for example, which was not even on the list before 2

years now has the best broadband connectivity. India can treat its deficit as an

asset."

Linking telecom to human development, the MIT professor said that in the future
the users of telecom will be inanimate, referring to connectivity at the

appliances level. He also added that wireless will see the most number of

innovations over the next two years.