SME, 'On Demand'
Today a majority of mid-sized companies are investing heavily in connectivity resulting in the demand for broadband connectivity from SMEs growing rapidly. The need for setting up enterprise wide applications as well as the adoption of other enterprise applications is the key for the rising need for bandwidth. One of the key applications is logging orders for immediate fulfillment thereby improving the supply chain mechanics and increasing profitability for the small enterprise by rolling the cash quicker. Additionally, the SME segment is also going to extensively use broadband for email, Internet access and inter-office communication. As a result, today, the SME market is on the radar of most of the broadband solutions and service providers. According to Gerela, there will be a host of applications in this space and a whole lot of demand around bandwidth, web hosting, etc which will see an increase in the SME segment.

According to Shitole, at the core of this technology adoption by SMEs is the need for faster, more reliable communication such as high speed Internet access. Broadband is an effective platform for delivery of services and applications. SMEs can leverage broadband connectivity to run data intensive applications like VoIP, etc. These are particularly attractive to SMEs owing to the benefits that accrue from such a technology, in terms of cost savings and enhanced productivity. "Broadband also enables SMEs to provide and implement improved customer service capabilities in the form of new suite of hosted applications/services depending on their core area of business. These technologies help companies improve customer responsiveness, reduce communication costs, realizing a measurable return on the investment," highlights Shitole.

The rise in demand from the SME brigade is further fuelling the trend towards 'bandwidth on demand' services, though the trend is permeating into large enterprises as well. As Bindal points out, customers, especially SME customers would prefer not to spend on technology but would prefer services available 'on-demand' through 'hosted services'. Market is moving towards 'pay per use' scenario and moving away from incurring individual capex on technology by the customers. The demand for hosted services is greater in the SMEs owing to the cost effectiveness factor. "SME adoption has been cautious in the past. This is changing with a multitude of service providers offering hosted solutions with low cost of getting started," says Gupta. Shitole touts SME as the fastest growing segment for managed services adoption in India.

However, Saji opines that today SMEs are happy with the retail broadband solutions though there are a number of security issues that have to be taken care of. "Otherwise SMEs prefer using wireless broadband solutions than wired ones like Metro Ethernet," he adds.

Wireless Broadband, in the Loop
A keen area of interest for vendors, service providers and enterprises alike is the wireless broadband space. In a geographically spread out country like India, wireless technology is the fastest and most cost effective way of delivering broadband especially in the last mile. Thereby enabling wider broadband penetration in the country. In fact, Bindal touts WiMax as the next big thing in broadband services. Wireless technologies like WiMax are much cheaper as there is no digging, spectrum is available on revenue share model, and utilization can be maintained at high levels. It also has a higher reach as it moves beyond terrain barriers, he explains. In terms of benefits from an enterprise perspective, Gupta explains that since WiMax offers benefits similar to wired with the constraint of location removed, thus, what a person could experience in office will now be possible while traveling too. This should improve productivity and drive enterprise value. The segmentation of applications by carrier type will no longer be valid and deployment will be seamless irrespective of connectivity type.

However, constraints still remain. The biggest challenge for WiMax in India will be the challenges on standard spectrum availability, points out Saji. "Globally 3.5 Ghz band is identified for WiMax which is not yet available and hence we would have a risk of loosing the price advantage. Hence, WiMax based wireless solutions may take time to become a solution of choice for price sensitive markets," he explains. Gerela concurs as he adds that WiMax will still take more time.

WiMAX, however, will be only one of the several next generation all-IP end-to-end mobile wireless technologies that will see broad deployment going forward. The others include the UMTS LTE and the long-term evolution of CDMA EV-DO. WiMAX is probably two years ahead of the alternatives, but we expect 3GPP (3rd Generation Partners Project), and 3GPP2 to work hard to close the gap, says Shitole.

At the end of the day, in the debate between wired Vs wireless broadband, it won't be a case of either or but a mix. All Indian service providers have both wireless and wireless networks to deliver broadband. The clincher finally will be the solutions and services that the vendors and service providers are ready to deliver with an eye on more stringent SLAs than ever before.

Shipra Arora
shipraa@cybermedia.co.in

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