Dishnet Wireless Ltd launched its Wi-Fi services in Chennai on April 27, at a glittering ceremony. The company unveiled the brand, Dishnet Red Broadband Wi-Fi, and announced elaborate plans to promote Wi-Fi services in Chennai and across India under the Red brand name. V G Suri, vice-president, sales and marketing, Dishnet Wireless Ltd, and Vinesh Paperwala, district manager, South Asia, Manufacturing, Energy and Telecom, Intel, launched the new product.
Dishnet Red Broadband Wi-Fi will enable Internet users across Chennai to access Internet at superior broadband speeds at some of the most popular public locations (Dishnet Red Wi-Fi Hotspots) in the city. These Hotspot locations comprise of a variety of segments like hotels, restaurants, cafes, airports, railway station, shopping malls, convention centres, hospitals, educational institutions and other public locations, Suri said, adding that this service was expected to roll out in June this year.
Wi-Fi - Wireless Fidelity - is a term used for wireless connectivity to the Internet or to the local area network (LAN). It operates on the standard protocol of 802.11 b and enables Internet access over a small area, called Hotspot, through a transmitter.
Dishnet RED has ambitious plans to expand its Wi-Fi network across the country. As a first step in a phased exercise, the company plans to launch its services in eight cities in the country - Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad - and subsequently cover 38 cities by March 2006, amounting to 6,000 Hotspots across the country. By doing so, Dishnet RED aims to become the dominant Wi-Fi service provider in India. At present, there are 107 Hotspots signed across Chennai of which 53 Hotspots are operational. The remaining Hotspots would be operational in the next 35 days, Suri said.
Expressing the euphoria within the company, V Srinivasan, CEO, Dishnet Wireless Ltd., said, "We at Dishnet are proud to present the next generation of Internet technology which will connect the ever-growing Internet users with our high-speed Wireless Internet access solutions."
Wireless broadband access has rocketed to stardom as a popular standard and a comprehensive technology in India. This high-speed wireless technology enables customers to access information, video and audio on their wireless device faster than most users do from their wired computer at home, while on the move, away from home and their workstations.
Paperwala said Intel was associated with the product in terms of the wireless verification programme. Wireless connectivity would revolutionise networking and communications in the future and raise the productivity levels of employees as well.
Dishnet Wireless Ltd is a group company of the Chennai-based Sterling Infotech Group, promoted by C Sivasankaran. Dishnet pioneered DSL broadband Internet access in India. Now, the company takes a step further to pioneer the next thing in Internet access - True Wireless Broadband. With an aim to become the leader in enterprise and wireless Internet services, Dishnet has initiated a focused effort to have deployments across most number of Wi-Fi locations throughout the country. With this, Dishnet would soon emerge as the pioneer in the public deployment of Wi-Fi and WIMAX technologies. Through enterprise and wireless Internet services, Dishnet is focusing to provide 3 services - corporate & enterprise solutions, wireless broadband and Wi-Fi services - and plans to extensively use WIMAX technology to support all the three services, Suri said.
