Stuart sets out a powerful scenario - Wi-Fi Hospitality :  

"So here's the start of a scenario has to impact on the numbers above.  Let's call it "Wi-Fi Hospitality".  If you have broadband... it's simply impolite not to provide Wi-Fi in your home or business.  If you keep me waiting in a waiting room at the doctors office.... let me at least have my link.  As for Starbucks --- pity their deal with T-Mobile.  Nothing like a hospitality brand that is no longer a good host! I want and expect free access.

There was once a time when visiting where we asked politely to use someones phone. Now the script is written --- please excuse me a minute... I must go and make a call (cellphone).  There is no returning  our guests to the "polite" ---- do you have Wi-Fi?  Do you mind? It may be as offputting as asking --- "Can I use your computer?" --- there is a level of privacy and lack of indepedence involved in that request. 

So to be THE HOSPITABLE HOST hook up Wi-Fi so the next time a friend enters your house and their PDA smiles... WiFi inside you get to hear the "Cool Dude - I'm connected! Thanks!" You may just expand your network and in the short term impress your friends! "

Brings forth visions of connected homes, hotels, restaurants, airports, dental clinics with long periods of waiting, an emergency situation in a rural area with poor connectivity otherwise .... just keep them out of cinema halls :)!

A long way before Stuart's powerful scenario will be a reality in India.  Yet it will happen.  A few positive signs in India :

Rajesh Jain's blog, Emergic.org (nice discovery) has a post in March - WiFi Leap for Rural Communications where he reports on two articles about a breakthrough by Media Lab Asia in WiFi. Their researches have managed to get 3 Mbps+ across a 37-km (22 miles) hop in rural India, as part of its Digital Gangetic Project.

Even the government can't fight privatization anymore - MTNL which is our largest telephone company, predominantly owned by the government, a joint sector company, is now talking about entering into new services like WiFi and digital signature services to build new revenue streams. The company will be setting up wireless hot spots at places like airports, upmarket restaurants and entertainment plazas in Mumbai and Delhi. The hotspots will work on 802.11b wireless technology, and will enable notebook computers and handheld devices to automatically connect to the communication network when brought in the hotspot area.

Prasanto Kumar Roy tells us all about Why WiFi is so Hot in an article at Dataquest.  Where he says : "WiFi isnít just big "solutions": If youíve heard a vendor pitch, or read a story about wireless campuses, youíve probably said "thatís not us". Youíre 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 periodsóconference and meeting rooms, for instance. It keeps them connected, and productive.  WiFi isnít 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 cardsóunder Rs 40,000. And itís far more convenient."

I attended a conference  held to explore ways in which Information Communication Technology is being used as a tool to empower the poor.  The conference was held in a small town called Baramati.  There's an institute there - VIIT which has WiFi - it was an amazing feeling being in a little town with such advanced technology. 

1:14:19 PM    comment []  trackback []

So many voices - so many views.

Anita takes us through the series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai and asks the same question i have - will it ever end ?

Jivha writes : "Whatever the report says, whatever the group that engineered the blasts, whatever the political parties say - Iím clear about one thing. Each and every person killed in the blasts today was killed by religion. I think we should consider becoming athiests if things are coming to this in India. I donít see much use for a religion at the cost of thousands of innocent lives every year."

My thoughts -

What is this religion that kills. It is no religion.

Is Osama religious? Is George Bush religious ? Are the people who fight wars in Israel and Palestine and Iran and Iraq and Pakistan and India religious?  Are the people who instigate civil wars in Liberia and Cambodia religious? Are the people behind the bomb blasts in Mumbai religious ? Or the ones that blow up innocent lives in Pakistan religious ?

For me, they are not. Their religion is one. Hatred and anarchy. Blood and fear.  Pain and anguish.  Absolute power.

It is a religion i want no part of.  It is a God that i can do well without.

Makes me wonder how something like religion that came into being for the purpose of uniting people has now turned into a force for division and destruction.  We've seen this time and again, and across religious wars even before the Crusades.  

I blame institutionalised religion for this - and not religiosity.  A truly religious person in my book is one who lives his life fully - without harming another. 

The sad thing is today we are choosing religion over religiousity.

And it makes me so angry.  And helpless.

Well..... life goes on - as E says in a comment at a discussion on the Mumbai blasts here -  "Well, this sounds like a comment section of TimesOfIndia. and i wonder what any of us is going to do about it other than commenting that its bad and its our fault and its their fault - and that includes me as well. the news will be old and forgotten in 2 weeks and we all will carry on with our lives, only the ones who have lost their friends/families/body parts will remember this forever, and thats how it goes, always! "

So back to work ....

10:09:42 AM    comment []  trackback []