Bharti Airtel, Idea plan to shift data traffic to wi-fi

NEW DELHI: Indian mobile phone companies such as Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and others are looking to shift a part of their data services to wi-fi hotspots, freeing up scarce 2G and 3G airwaves for mobile telephony.

Mobile phone companies are building wi-fi hotspots to accommodate growing mobile broadband data usage among consumers. "Spectrum is limited and all over the world carriers have offloaded data on to wi-fi, integrating it with existing networks while the back haul can be any medium - copper, fibre or LTE. It's pretty much part of the plan for us as well," said Bharti Airtel's president for consumer business K Srinivas.

Bharti Airtel has already set up more than 1,000 hot spots in top three cities across India where data consumption is very high, apportioning a greater proportion of its licensed spectrum for handling voice traffic.

A hotspot is any location that offers wireless internet access. A person carrying a wi-fi-enabled smartphone can access internet from a hotspot.

A senior executive at Idea Cellular added that most telecom operators were considering extensive wi-fi hotspot deployments since existing spectrum was exhausted by its current voice and data traffic. "Given the scarcity of spectrum, it is an option everyone is looking at," this executive said.

Mobile operator Aircel said this week that it would hold trials of improved wi-fi hotspot technology before the end of the year so that it is ready for commercial deployment by next year. This technology would allow automatic connectivity to a wi-fi device. At present, one has to latch on to a wi-fi network by keying in a pass code.

Aircel has been propagating use of wi-fi technology as it feels this will lighten the load on licensed spectrum. Also, since wi-fi services are usually accessed indoors, deploying hotspots can improve indoor data coverage.


"Service providers are looking at wi-fi as an alternative radio technology that will be deployed in parallel with their existing macro base-station network. This will make more spectrum available for data usage," said Cisco's chief technology officer Alex Zinin.


He said with spectrum being scarce in India, Cisco was giving phone companies an option to use wi-fi, which is unlicensed spectrum. "We're talking to several service providers about that (deployments)," added Zinin.

Some mobile phone companies are also considering using wi-fi to augment their existing mobile networks and to put them in high-density areas like shopping centers and stadiums.

"Wi-fi offloading is definitely a trend that is catching up. Wi-fi customers will be in public areas, at home, or in enterprises and considering that there are existing issues on pricing of spectrum and low uptake of data so far, so wireless makes good sense. There's definitely money to be made there," explains KPMG India's partner Jaideep Ghosh.