Ruckus Networks to team up with many partners to cater to rising demand for Wi-Fi hotspots

With the demand for Wi-fi hotspots rising across the country, Ruckus Networks, a provider of technology and devices, will work with multiple service providers to power Wi-Fi spots in cricket stadiums, football grounds and malls.

The Indian market has been seeing a surge in the requirement of Wi-Fi hotspots in recent times thanks to government initiatives. There is a lot of traction in the segment now, said Sudarshan Boosupalli of Ruckus Networks, which is a part of Arris International.

Speaking to BusinessLine , Boosupalli said that though players such as Ruckus have been in talks with telcos since 2009 about the need to have Wi-Fi in the ecosystem, it is only now that telecom operators are looking at it seriously.

According to recent reports, there is scope for 80 lakh hotspots and each of the operators has deployed thousands of access points across the country.

“There is a huge scope and that is being led by the government initiative. We are closely watching, assessing and getting involved in the talks that happen with government organisations to see what makes sense for a player like us,” he said.

The company has also been working with Google to power ‘Google Station’ Wi-Fi hot spots in India, Indonesia and Mexico. In India, Ruckus is working with Google for over a year and more than 50 per cent of the 400 Wi-Fi hotspots, that are up and running now, are the result of the partnerships between Google, RailTel and Ruckus technology.

In addition, Ruckus is already working to provide Wi-Fi hotspot at seven cricket stadia in partnership with Reliance Jio, Boosupalli said.

With the Wi-Fi project extending to major Indian cities, Boosupalli said this move has direct relevance to what the government is also planning across the country — creating tourism hotspots across the country, heritage tourist places through BSNL or rural connectivity with the help of BharatNet at the back-end.

The company currently sources devices from China, Malaysia and the US. “Nothing is manufactured in India, yet,” he said, adding that the company was deliberating India manufacture considering there is a huge scope in the market.

The government also proposes to set up five lakh Wi-Fi hotspots which will provide broadband access to 5 crore rural citizens. And, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in the Budget, this year had announced sanctioning ₹10,000 crore in 2018-19 for creation and augmentation of telecom infrastructure.

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