Friday, December 07, 2007

Bangalore Unwired!

The state of Karnataka has started an ambitious project to turn Bangalore into a wireless city. A pilot project is underway and scheduled to launch in early first quarter of 2008. This is supposed to Wi-Fi enable the region around M.G. Road (the main drag in Bangalore). Wireless Bangalore will minimize location dependency and allow adults and children to work and play from anywhere in the city.

I dream about the reality of this vision as I am standing in my thirteenth floor apartment trying desperately to locate the one spot where my cell phone might pick up it's signal. There are two such spots (thankfully allowing both Mona and myself to use our cell phones at the same time) in the house. One spot is a circle with a diameter of 2 feet at the border of the kitchen and the living area right next to the refrigerator. The other is a 1ftx2ft rectangle in the bedroom next to the dresser.

Even the landline is not 100% reliable. Most of the times it works ... but it conks out right before I have an important conference call with a customer!

There lies the irony of a place called Bangalore (and India!).

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