M G Road stretch to be Wi-Fi enabled as part of pilot project

M G Road stretch to be Wi-Fi enabled as part of pilot project
Bangalore to shed its strings
By Manjunath R Setty and Prashanth Rai, DH News Service, Bangalore:
The entire stretch of M G Road - Trinity Circle up to M G Road-Kasturba Road junction - has been converted into a 'hotspot' as part of the 'Unwired Bangalore' project, a State government initiative.


At last, the City seems set to bid adieu to wires. Which would mean you can browse the internet while driving on the road without having to plug in.

To begin with, the entire stretch of M G Road – Trinity Circle up to M G Road-Kasturba Road junction – has been converted into a ‘hotspot’ as part of the ‘Unwired Bangalore’ project, a State government initiative.

The City is known to have hotspots or Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) facility in hotels and malls. It, however, curtails users’ mobility as its reach is limited.

Talking of Unwired Bangalore’s advantage, Karthik Subramanian, Vice-President (Sales and Support), Arasor Communications – one of the firms involved in laying the ground for the project, says: “You could use laptops, cellphones or PDAs to access the Web while on the move.”

Besides M G Road, the project covers Brigade Road, Kasturba Road and parts of Residency Road.

Mr Karthik said these roads are being Wi-Fi enabled as part of a pilot project. Drive on any of these roads and you’ll see gadgets with antennas fixed on electric poles. These gadgets, linked through cables, help provide seamless Wi-Fi connectivity.

Consortium

The consortium, comprising Arasor: Keonics, a State government enterprise; Aircel, a telecom service provider and Pronto Networks which offers Wi-Fi operations support systems, are Wi-Fi enabling M G Road and those adjoining it.

Mr M N Vidyashankar, State IT and BT secretary, said some private players, including Microsense, Reliance and Bharti Airtel, have already started offering services on pilot basis in select areas in Electronics City and Whitefield.

Meanwhile, the Government has completed the technical evaluation of bidders. “We hope to have the project running in a couple of months, while wireless internet broadband services would be available by early 2008,” said Mr Vidyashankar.

The idea was mooted in 2004-05 and initial studies completed in 2005-06.

Delay

While admitting the project roll-out was taking a little longer than expected, he said the area initially proposed to be covered was 276 sq km of Bangalore City Corporation.

With the creation of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, which is spread over 790 sq km, the Government is working to rope in two to three players to provide these services.