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Tata Communications and Tomizone sign deal for Wi-Fi in India
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 20 January 2010, 19:12 IST
New Delhi: Tata Communications Internet Services (TCISL) and Tomizone have announced a partnership deal by which TCISL will use Tomizone proprietary software to usher in a Wi-Fi revolution in India. Auckland headquartered Tomizone is a leading Wi-Fi hotspot and metro Wi-Fi zone solutions provider across Australia, China, India and New Zealand.
"There is a need for higher penetration of Wi-Fi hotspots where laptop and Wi-Fi enabled device users can connect to the internet. Currently there are less than 1000 Wi-Fi hotspots in India with Tata Indicom Wi-Fi having a share of over 50 percent. As a result of this partnership, the number of such hotspots can grow manifold in a much shorter time and also give retail consumers to take part in this exciting new business opportunity," said Prateek Pashine, Chief Operating Officder, TCISL. "The association with Tomizone will help in expanding the Wi-Fi footprint in India enabling any Tata Indicom Broadband customer to set up a Wi-Fi hotspot and the software and user authentication systems have been designed in line with the Wi-Fi security guidelines mandated by the Department of Telecom."
This partnership will allow Tata Indicom broadband customers to set up Wi-Fi hotspots at their premises instantly. Besides his or her personal usage, the customer will also get an opportunity to utilize their unused bandwidth by offering it to others. In return, they will get credit (of internet surfing time) on their account, thus subsidizing the cost of their Broadband connection.
India has among the lowest penetration of broadband in the world at about 0.6 percent with 6.62 million subscribers as on June 2009. India is expected to take a leap in penetration with a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and IMRB Broadband Report forecasting 214 million subscribers by 2014. The partnership with Tomizone is a step in bridging the gap in broadband penetration in India.
Prateek Pashine further added, "Today TCISL is already the largest Wi-Fi player in the country. And with this association, we will usher in a Wi-Fi revolution that can potentially create thousands of hotspots and enable lakhs of users to access blistering internet on Wi-Fi technology in a far more ubiquitous manner than today."
Girish Hiremath, Country Head of Tomizone India, welcomed the partnership with TCISL and heralded it as a smart cooperation model whereby both companies can deploy their unique strengths to quicken the availability of ubiquitous Wi-Fi coverage that is easy to use and affordable in India.