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It's boom time for wireless in India as more and more enterprises get hooked to it, provide notebooks to their employees and enable WLAN to ensure better productivity and efficiency.

Restricted to certain vertical markets until recently, there is now rapid adoption among the hospitality, manufacturing, banking and financial institutions, large corporates and the SMB/SOHO segments. And the technology isn't limited to business-use only; it is finding traction among the home-networking segment as well. Business Development Manager for Enterprise with Cisco Systems, India and SAARC, Suprabhat Chatterjee says, "Enterprises have their LAN in place and have to only invest in access points to expand into a wireless network. Since the initial set-up cost is minimal, there is quicker adoption of this technology."

A very important growth driver is the reduction in notebook prices in the Indian market, says Paramjit Singh Puri, Pronto Network's head for APAC and India. "The notebook is not viewed as an exclusive product anymore and has made its entry into the sales and marketing segment in enterprises. There is higher notebooks penetration at affordable costs, and notebooks being shipped are also Wi-Fi enabled, providing complete mobility to users. Availability of public hotspots and the reduction in bandwidth costs are definite growth drivers. In India, bandwidth costs are very high, and this is preventing mass penetration. Once the prices come down, there will be a greater rate of adoption."

Numerous other gadgets like handhelds, PDAs, mobile phones, digital cameras, all-in-ones, MP3 players, video-on-demand etc, will be Wi-Fi enabled and the adoption of these devices will act as a growth driver for the younger generation.

While 802.11b-based Wireless LAN (WLAN) has been in India for over three years now, it was only in 2002-03 that it started getting noticed. The recent recommendations in the Broadband policy, with respect to de-licensing of the 2.4 GHz frequency band, in which 802.11b operates, for indoor use by the government, was certainly one of the drivers.

For Wi-Fi to succeed in an enterprise environment, two things are required-one, the ability of the technology to handle multiple and complex applications and two, availability of speeds akin to a wired network. All standards complement each other. Therefore, enterprises need to adopt a standard that best suits its needs and the requirements of the users.

"Enterprise users are still much on 802.11b because to upgrade to 802.11g, significant upfront hardware costs need to be considered. Think about the access points that need to be upgraded to enjoy the 802.11g speeds. The key drivers will be improved-speed, coverage and security, in the next generation WLAN products," says Louis Lye, Territory Manager, Asia Pacific, Belkin Corporation.

QoS challenge
Quality of Service (QoS) issues abound since QoS technologies provide the building blocks for business multimedia and voice applications used in campus, WAN, and service provider networks and also allows network managers to establish service-level agreements (SLAs) with their network users. One of the limitations is that the frequency for 802.11b and 802.11g is highly prone to interference. The second limitation would be when notebooks are configured with a default setting and the user may have to change settings each time to connect to a public hotspot.

Many organizations have been reluctant to deploy extensive WLANs because management tools were weak or nonexistent, and WLAN management was labor intensive. Although the capital cost of a wireless network is low, without proper management framework, operational costs of large WLANs, in terms of man-hours required, can get very high.

Additionally, enterprise networks also need other QoS features to separate and control data, voice, and video traffic, such that the network can prioritize and queue packets based on the need," Chatterjee explains.

Threat perception
No less a challenge is security, especially for network administrators and information security administrators. Unlike the relative simplicity of wired Ethernet deployments, 802.11-based wireless LANs broadcast radio-frequency (RF) data for the client stations. This presents new and complex security issues that involve augmenting the 802.11 standard, says Chatterjee.

"Some mistakenly believe WEP to be the only component to wireless LAN security. However, there is a need to educate administrators on the three key elements that truly secure a wireless network: the authentication framework, the authentication algorithm and the data privacy or encryption algorithm," he adds.

Today, mobile connectivity is viewed more as a necessity rather than a luxury, says Puri. "Awareness has to be created to address security issues. Customers should check for IP Sec-enabled hotspots. They should be encouraged to use VPN over a wireless connection. Users should be encouraged to also set personal firewalls on their systems."

To help address this gap in WLANs, the IEEE 802.11 Working Group instituted 'Task Group I' to produce a security upgrade for the 802.11 standard. "802.11i is building the standard around 802.1X port-based authentication for user and device authentication. The 802.11i standard, which isn't expected to be completed until later this year, includes two main developments: Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and Robust Security Network (RSN). The IP Sec uses encryption technology to provide data confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity between users in a private network. These tools are used to protect confidential data that is transferred when users either upload or download information through WLAN," Puri explains.

Constant end user education through IT publications and newsletters are required to handle fears regarding security. Real life scenario displays on how easy it is to tap onto an unsecured wireless network on the vendors' websites would be beneficial as well. This is because that is the first place potential end users will visit when they want to find out more about a certain brand of wireless networking gear.

Mix and Match?
Now that the IEEE 802.11b standard is popular, many vendors are offering products based on this. But are vendors offering WLANs that combine different standards? Vendors are now working towards ensuring that various standards can speak to each other, so that the customer gets the maximum return from his investment in wireless networking. Due to the decreasing costs of b/g and a/b/g chips, more vendors are combining standards to give the users better value for their money.

Vendors are providing products that are 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g compatible. However, interoperability between 802.11a and 802.11b is difficult, as the operating frequency range is totally different. "There will be a requirement for two separate radios to handle this and it will only increase costs. There will be price increases as most vendors will not be willing to take that risk. Since the current 802.11 systems are being improved, there will definitely be an improved system that will co-exist, but when newer generations of technology evolve, the existing ones will eventually be phased out. As long as the underlying protocol is the same, only additional features will be offered," says Puri.

Team DQ

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