Barun Roy: Taipei's wireless Net edge

ASIA FILE

The world's largest "unwired" metropolis expects 200,000 people to use wireless Net phones by year-end.

An Asian city, Taipei, has beaten all others to become the world's first, and so far its largest, "unwired" metropolis. Now, municipal governments around the world are accelerating their own plans for citywide wireless Internet access for the public at no or low cost.

Private wireless hotspots have been on the scene in many cities for some time and have become a useful tool of doing or promoting business. Even Bangalore reportedly has 200 of them in hotels, coffee shops, malls and the airport lobby. Entire conference venues are unwiring themselves so that anybody can access the Internet on his mobile-enabled laptop from anywhere in the complex. But it's municipal wireless, where anybody with an enabled laptop can tap the Internet from any public place, like a park, a bus station, or a parking lot, that's making all the waves right now.

Municipal wireless networks are already in place in about 250 locations across the US, but none of these is truly citywide yet. Toronto could see a partial rollout this September. Paris expects 80 per cent of Parisians to be covered by 2010. After its success in Xintiandi, Huauhai Lu and People's Square areas, Shanghai is encouraged to expand the service citywide. Malaysia is contemplating public networks using the WiMax technology, said to be able to provide a larger coverage than WiFi.

But Taipei is there already. Last month, some 800 participants from 24 countries met in the Taiwanese capital for a digital cities convention and officially certified that, of the 50 places in the world that have received wireless LAN certification so far, Taipei's network was the largest and densest.

Taipei and two other Asian cities, Seoul and Osaka, are taking part in Intel's "Digital Communities" programme for a pilot rollout of broadband wireless Internet access networks in 13 cities around the world. Launched in August 2005, the programme is supposed to extend eventually to more than 100 locations worldwide. Mayor Ma Ying-jeou claimed at the digital cities convention that wireless Internet access was now available in 90 per cent of the Taipei's public spaces through some 5,000 access points mounted on such facilities as street lamps, traffic signals, subway stations and public buildings. Eventually, the network would spread to suburban areas and form a cloud of some 10,000 access points over the entire 272 square miles of Taipei's metropolitan area.

Obviously, "anytime, anywhere" Internet browsing isn't the only idea. Internet telephony is one of the main objectives, which is why the service is named "Easy Call". One can buy unlimited phone access for 350 New Taiwan dollars a month or buy minutes. The city government expects some 200,000 people to use wireless Internet phones by the end of this year.

If that sounds like a tall claim, remember that Taipeites are highly computer-savvy. Over 300,000 of them are said to have passed through professional computer courses and 84 per cent of all municipal documents are computerised. Over 88 per cent of Taipei households are said to own computers and 79 per cent of all households have broadband connections.

From a government's point of view, municipal wireless is a hugely popular idea that helps boost a city's attraction as a business and tourism location. If wireless connectivity and telephony were available universally from any point in a city, one wouldn't need to stay at home or take a trip to a specific private location to stay connected. China is even turning trains into wireless hubs as an added lure. By the end of 2006, over 200 of its express trains will have wireless Internet available on board.

But governments are also looking at public wireless connectivity as an important way to make public services more worthwhile, administrative services more efficient, and e-governance more practical. The Intel programme, in particular, is aimed at eliminating paper-based processes and enabling citizens to access government and municipal services with greater ease, speed and convenience, literally on real time.

The idea, certainly, is immensely attractive, but one may question if it's also economically sound. To be popular, such a service must be available for free, as few people would like to buy a new connectivity after a paid one at home. But there aren't very many municipalities that have the financial standing to run a totally free service after paying a private company a hefty sum to set it up in the first place.

In a country like India, where computer density is very low and computer-mindedness barely exists within the bureaucracy, one might also ask: would municipal wireless have any real meaning? I was at a local BSNL office to pay my telephone bill and suddenly there was a commotion at the counter. A man was trying to pay his bill with a copy he had downloaded from BSNL's web site, but the man behind the counter simply wouldn't accept it.