Funding for WiFi Infra is major challenge: COAI

NEW DELHI: Cellular Association of India (COAI) has said that even though the telecom operators in India would be interested to join the Wireless Broadband Alliance, a global strategic alliance which works for the deployment of wi-fi worldwide, investment could be a major challenge for them.

After shelling out huge amount of money for spectrum, upgradation of networks, the telcos are not willing to invest any more, Rajan Mathews, Director General, COAI, told Voice&Data.

The Wireless Broadband Alliance was founded in 2003 and has only three members in India, including Tata Tele, RJio, out of 100 globally.

The alliance is betting big on the India market, given the government's Digital India and Smart City initiative of bringing connectivity for the Smart Cities Program.

Mathews also said that all the players in the telecom ecosystem should come together to perpetuate the success of this initiative taken by WBA, but EMF, licensing are other big issues in India as setting up of hotspots is not going to be a smooth process.

However, Bobby Sarin, Founder and CEO, Ozone Networks, opined that the masses need to be educated about the fact that the radiations from the hotspots are not at all harmful if we want to turn the Smart City and the Digital India program a reality, then that’s the need of the hour.

Ozone Networks provides its wi-fi solution in the Apollo Hospital in Delhi, and has recently become the member of WBA.

At the first WBA Vision Forum in India, organized at New Delhi yesterday, the Delhi government joined the WBA Connected City Advisory Board.

The alliance also introduced its first initiative in India to discuss the transformational role of wi-fi in Connected City deployments by bringing together close to 200 executives and experts from around the world.

The Connected City Advisory Board provides a platform for City Managers and CIOs to knowledge-share and meet their counterparts in other cities and determine the best way to leverage public-private partnerships.

The WBA Board includes AT&T, Boingo Wireless, BT, Cisco Systems, Comcast, iPass, KT Corporation, Liberty Global, NTT DOCOMO, Orange and Ruckus Wireless.