"The next big thing after the Internet," someone called it. I don’t know if it was Negroponte or Intel’s Otellini or Cisco’s Chambers, and I’ve lost count of all the Next Big Things. But even if you discount protagonists who sell WiFi products or services or components or silicon, the fact is wireless networking is a disruptive technology. It’ll shake up our tech-enabled world a bit, ramp up laptop usage, change habits. Not unlike what wireless did for voice.

It’s surprising, then, how little CIOs, and even IT industry pros, know about WiFi. Most see it as "an exotic, esoteric, expensive technology"... Fueled by examples, case studies and outlandish quotations for "solutions", which quickly scare off buyers.

WiFi helped me participate in a crucial instant-messenger conference throughout a flight from Frankfurt to the US. It helped me send off much-delayed work done on a flight, by standing outside a business lounge (I had flown economy). It helped me finish a business discussion on e-mail while waiting in a bus outside a hotel in Helsinki. Yes, WiFi has my next-big-thing vote.

WiFi isn’t just big "solutions": If you’ve heard a vendor pitch, or read a story about wireless campuses, you’ve probably said "that’s not us". You’re probably right. You have a wired LAN, which you have no reason to replace. WiFi lets you quickly and cheaply extend your existing network into places that people pass through or visit for short periods—conference and meeting rooms, for instance. It keeps them connected, and productive.

WiFi isn’t expensive: For someone setting up a small office, it costs about the same as a wired network. If you have five laptops users and a DSL connection, all you need is an access point and five cards—under Rs 40,000. And it’s far more convenient.

Setting up the service locations—hot-spots, if you like—will be the key to ramping up usage... and establishing differentiators.

Singapore’s Changi offered wireless access free for a year, even lending out free cards. That helped make Changi a preferred business traveler hub... Our star hotels love to price services as premium and skim the cream so hard there’s nothing left. The Oberoi in Mumbai has WiFi, but charges a minimum of Rs 200 for an hour, Rs 800 for a day—as a result of which a flotilla of WiFi-enabled laptop-users at a recent IT event didn’t use the service. In the US, I know the Starbucks coffee shops have WiFi, so I head there if I can’t find cheap connectivity where I’m staying. Of course, I also buy their coffee…

Take our airports—the short Delhi-to-Bombay flight knocks you out of connectivity for five hours, or 10 hours in a day trip.

The mere ability to connect and sync my mail before and after the flight will make a big difference, and will make me carry my laptop. Such hot-spots—which have to be co-promoted by WiFi vendors and ISPs to ensure a sustained free trial period and concept selling—will ensure real growth in laptop usage, still flat at under 5% of annual PC sales.

Globally, WiFi products sell like hot cakes, and there’ll be another boost now that the 54 Mbps and backward-compatible 802.11g standard have been finalized (but even before this, 6 million .g products sold!). India still allows only 2.4 GHz indoor use (without a license) which rules out 802.11a but allows .b and .g. That still gives enough room for businesses to benefit from cheap, available WiFi products... And for early, fast-moving and savvy vendors and channel players to make their mark in the wireless age.

Prasanto K Roy