License for WLAN Products: Is It Really Required?

Indian may have to wait for couple of more months. While Microsoft is moving full steam ahead with the planned global launch of Tablet PC in New York in November 2002, a small legal issue has put on hold the OEM’s–HP, Toshiba and Acer's plans of a simultaneous launch in the country.

While OEM partners of this project declined to comment on the issue citing "non disclosure agreement" as the reason, according to a senior Microsoft India official, the Tablet PC motherboard has an inbuilt WiFi-based wireless LAN card– aimed at ensuring true mobility of the product–that makes it necessary for the vendor to get Dealer’s Possession License (DPL) before the product can be introduced in the Indian market. According to DoT norms, DPL is mandatory for all vendors if they want to stock and trade in wireless apparatus. While the official shrugged the matter as a non-issue and assured that the product would definitely be out in the Indian market by December end, the small bit of information did raise a more serious issue. While the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and their counterparts across all major countries have decided to keep spectrum in the vicinity of 2.4 Ghz unlicensed under the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band, why does India Inc need license for use of any type of 802.11-based products or wireless LANs that operates in the same band? 

The WiFi factor

Earlier the alliance was known as the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) but changed its name in October 2002 to better reflect the Wi-Fi brand it wants to build. Also, while the term "Wi-Fi" was used only in place of the 2.4GHz 802.11b standard, in the same way that "Ethernet" is used in place of IEEE 802.3, the Alliance expanded the generic use of the term in an attempt to stop confusion about wireless LAN. 

The Bottleneck

The widespread reliance on networking in business and the meteoric growth of Internet and online services are strong testimonies to the benefits of shared data and shared resources. With Wireless LANs, users can access shared information without looking for a place to plug in making anywhere, anytime business a reality. Also, it enables network managers to set up or augment networks without installing or moving wires.

Globally, wireless LAN has gained immense popularity in verticals like health care, retail, manufacturing, warehousing and academia as these industries have profited from the productivity gains of using hand-held terminals and notebook computers to transmit real-time information to centralized host for processing. Reports suggest that in the highly networked markets of US and Europe, wireless LANs are popular because of four main reasons— user mobility, speedy and less cumbersome installation, installation flexibility, and scalability.

Not that the same does not hold good for India. It certainly does cause the overall cost of wireless LAN hardware has nose dived in last two years–from Rs 100,000 to Rs 45,000 for wireless LAN access point and from Rs 17,000 to Rs 10,000 for PCMCIA Ethernet card. However, the real benefit is lost due to recurring spectrum fee payable to the wireless planning and coordination (WPC) wing of the Department of Telecom (DoT). While the first needs to cough up Rs 18,000 per year for frequency use, every additional user needs to pay one-fourth or Rs 4,505 per year as the license fee for use on this ISM band. Not to mention that in the case of first time users, it usually takes three-four months to get a clearance from WPC as the request has also to be cleared by the Union Home Ministry. However, an existing user of Wireless LAN can expect to get a clearance in two-three weeks’ time. Worst, an organization also needs to approach the WPC for allocation of frequency for every new user it adds on its wireless LAN network.

Why the License?

While no body debates the fact that spectrum being a scarce national resource needs to be managed in order to ensure that radio services are able to operate on a non-interference basis, what bugs the industry and users the most is the licensing of the ISM band. While a senior DoT official cites security as a major reason for putting WiFi in the license bracket–lot of defence and intelligence agencies use the same frequency–industry analysts and experts feel that the real motive can be revenue. Their argument is substantiated to a certain extent what WPC’s document on economic considerations of spectrum pricing says: "While a free market in spectrum does not appear feasible due to technical, economic, and social considerations; auctions, transferable and flexible spectrum rights, and well-designed fees can enable a number of the benefits of a market approach to be realized. Fees can promote efficient use of the spectrum provided that they incorporate the correct economic incentives and are not set so low as to be negligible in the eyes of spectrum users or so high as to exceed what a market would set, in which case spectrum will sit idle and generate no benefits."

In fact, while gross injustice has been done to technology, at the first place, by putting WiFi in the licensing category, the WPC also seems to be unaware of the market dynamics even in fixing the cost for using this spectrum and violating its own principles of ‘not fixing a price so high to exceed what a market would set’. No wonder then, despite availability of technology, wireless LAN implementation has been limited to only some companies, mainly MNCs like Microsoft and Cisco or top IT companies in the country. In fact, had it not been the issue of DPL, Indians would not have had to wait couple of more months to be able to use the technology that had triggered the imagination of scientists almost 20 years back–the dream to create a real PADD, the slate device that inhabitants of Star Trek used to record and access data as they moved around the starship Enterprise.

Not that the government is not aware of the issue. It certainly is or else the IT & communication minister Pramod Mahajan would not have told 9th session of the General Assembly and the 26th Session of the Management Committee of the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) about the government’s proposed plan to delicense the indoor use of wireless LAN. This he said would enable the university and office campuses for making greater use of wireless for communication purposes.

Unfortunately, while India is amongst very few countries that still warrant license for products using WiFi, such announcements have been in offing for more than three months now. And while concerns about security is only a technical issue a solution to which is available across the globe, the major hindrance is the political will for policy changes and only time will be able to tell whether or not Mahajan is able to deliver his promise again.

Comments:

In case, despite his efforts, the DoT still wants to hold on to the ‘license raj’, the least government can do is to bring down license fee to a reasonable level and do away with the per user structure and the need to seek permission for every new user, charging only a fixed annual fee from the organizations willing to go the wireless LAN way.

Shubhendu Parth