Liberalised Wi-Fi will provide a win-win scenario for all in India: T V Ramachandran, BIF

Internet, by default, has become a second skin to us. Without which mitigating COVID-19 would never have been possible. From contact tracing of positive cases to last-mile telemedicine delivery, homeschooling to sustaining businesses, the internet is breathing its life into us constantly. Be it through data from mobile phones or through broadband via fixed and wireless connections, or Wi-Fi, the Internet is powering several connectivity systems for the virtual world.

While the world stands united in its fight against the worst disaster in the form a pandemic, technologists and engineers in the communications industry took some time out to express their gratitude towards Wi-Fi on the World Wi-Fi Day, celebrated annually on June 20^th.

World Wi-Fi Day is an international event championed by the World Broadband Alliance (WBA). The purpose of this day is intended to recognize and celebrate the significant role Wi-Fi plays in connecting cities and communities around the world. And, this year, amid this pandemic struck by Coronavirus, the value of Wi-Fi as a necessary tool could never have been lauded and appreciated more than any other preceding years.

Joining hands with its global counterparts in celebrating the day, on June 20^th, Broadband India Forum (BIF), India’s leading independent think-tank and policy forum for digital communications, and Bharat Exhibitions organized the second of The Digital Dialogues series on “The Role of Wi-Fi in Broadband proliferation”, in association with IEEE and TSDSI as event partners, and ICRIER as the knowledge partner.

This was organized as a high-level session with the regulatory heads of the USA and India. Ajit Pai, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, USA, and Dr. R S Sharma, Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, had addressed the virtual conference on the vital issue as Chief Guest and Session Chair respectively.

Dorothy Stanley, Chair of Wi-Fi Working Group, IEEE and Professor Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur and former Chairman of TSDSI also addressed the session as Special Guests of Honour.

The delegates took the occasion to launch A BIF constructed White Paper on “Proliferation of Broadband Through Wi-Fi” authored by T V Ramachandran, President, BIF, and Manohar Raja, Executive Director, RailTel. The formation of BIF's High-Level Specialist Committee on WiFi, to be led by RailTel, the latest Patron Member of BIF, was also announced on the occasion.

The White Paper - “Proliferation of Broadband Through Wi-Fi” explores the various facets of the Public Wi-Fi technology, and how its commercial deployment could help provide reliable, high-speed mobile access to the internet, at extremely cost-effective rates. The far & wide deployment of commercial public Wi-Fi is a key focus area for this whitepaper, which sets the context with a comprehensive accounting of the socio-economic effects of access, as well as what delays rollout to rural areas.

Commenting on the occasion and also about the White Paper launch, T V Ramachandran, President, BIF, said, “During the Covid-19 pandemic, data traffic shot up by 30% as per the latest EY Report but we all coped from home. This would not have been possible with only mobile broadband as it is availability is obviously hampered by licensed spectrum. Due to WFH and online education being adopted at a large scale the focus on Fixed Broadband and Wi-Fi have shot up during this period - a big challenge to networks. However, the extra delicensed spectrum in the 5 GHz band came in as a godsend during this period to handle the additional traffic that is surging in residential locations. To cater to the certainty of increased traffic in the post-pandemic period, a more delicensed spectrum would be highly essential. The 6 GHz spectrum band if delicensed, as in the US, would be a great boon to cater to increased data traffic and will help augment the indoor penetration requirements through Wi-Fi. Liberalized Wi-Fi provides a win-win scenario for all; new data carriage revenue streams for ISPs; affordability and improved quality to consumers; surge in employment potential due to the requirement of hundreds of thousands of micro- and village-level entrepreneurs; and, of course, Broadband for All.”

Offering his comments and opinions over the virtual interaction, Ajit Pai, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, USA, said, “During my visit to India in February, I had a good discussion with Secretary Prakash about our 6 GHz efforts, so I know that India is interested in exploring the possibilities of unlicensed use in this band. I’m eager to work with all of you and other leaders around the world to harness the benefits of the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi, and then working together toward global harmonization of this spectrum.”

According to Pai, promoting the availability of Wi-Fi and advances in this technology are key pieces of any strategy to provide connectivity for all. Even before anyone had heard of COVID-19, Wi-Fi had already carried more than half of the Internet’s traffic, and offloading mobile data traffic to Wi-Fi was vital to keeping cellular networks from being overwhelmed, says Pai.

“In a very real sense, Wi-Fi is the fabric that binds together all our digital devices. And Wi-Fi will be even more important in the years to come. By one estimate, the economic value created by Wi-Fi in the United States is projected to double by 2023 — reaching nearly $1 trillion,” shared Pai.

Explaining FCC’s efforts in Wi-Fi 6, Pai had said, “FCC, in its part, is working towards harnessing the power of Wi-Fi to bridge the digital divide. FCC, in its immediate term, has expanded access to Wi-Fi as part of the Commission’s response to the coronavirus. Looking a bit further into the future, the most important action the Commission has taken recently to promote the development and deployment of Wi-Fi services is our plan for the 6 GHz band. With our growing reliance on Wi-Fi, we are going to need faster, stronger Wi-Fi networks. The good news is that Wi-Fi 6, the next generation of Wi-Fi, has already started rolling out. Wi-Fi 6 will be over two-and-a-half times faster than the current standard, and it will offer better performance for connected devices. But in order to fully take advantage of the benefits of Wi-Fi 6, we need to make more mid-band spectrum available for unlicensed use. And that’s exactly what the FCC did on April 23. The Commission unanimously approved my proposal to make the entire 6 GHz band available for unlicensed use. By doing this, we are creating a massive 1,200 megahertz testbed for innovators and innovation. This is a big deal; we are effectively increasing the amount of mid-band spectrum available for Wi-Fi by almost a factor of five.”

While deliberating, Dr R S Sharma Chairman, TRAI, in his opinion said, “India is a price-sensitive market and needs to deploy scalable, frugal and interoperable technology to provide affordable broadband access. The proposed WANI model of Public Wi-Fi is developed with that objective. Wi-Fi has largely helped in shifting the burden from networks providing internet. Wi-Fi managed to transform India’s communication patterns and has shouldered a significant portion of Internet demand. Digital transitions have seen an upsurge in India and Wi-Fi has been an immense contributor to it.”

Dorothy Stanley, IEEE Wi-Fi WG Chair, in her comments had said, “We acknowledge the action by the Indian Ministry to open up the 5 GHz band. India now has more spectrum in the 5 GHz band than Japan, USA or Europe, which is a tremendous achievement.”

Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur and former Chairman of TSDSI (Also Part-Time Member, TRAI) said, “The use of a large number of Wi-Fi hotspots would be a good use case in the Indian context, especially in the rural scenario, to provide quality broadband access, and in various forms for urban internet penetration as well.”

As the delegates deliberated more, the underlying impetus on connecting the unconnected remained common. That Day, exclusively for Wi-Fi as a communication tool, although gained appreciation for its strengths, also ensured that it created awareness on the fact that approximately 3 billion people around the world have hardly any access to the internet. This year’s theme therefore #hopeforconnectivity and #together we can make Wi-Fi better has never been so relevant in times of Covid-19.