| Country's first Wi-Fi enabled city in a year.
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| Pune is going to be the country’s first Wi-Fi enabled information technology city. And helping it in the task will be the Indian arm of Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker.
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| Termed “Unwiring Pune”, the project will offer citizens access to Internet from anywhere in the city through a wireless device.
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| WiMAX and Wi-Fi technologies will provide wireless connectivity to access the Internet using a laptop computer or a PDA or a similar hand-held device.
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| Announcing this here today, Pune Municipal Commissioner Nitin Kareer said the project, expected to be commissioned in a year’s time, would offer Wi-Fi connectivity to approximately a 400 sq km area, including Pune city, Pimpri-Chinchwad and information technology pockets such as Hinjewadi. The initial investment in the project was estimated at Rs 7 crore, he said.
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| Kareer said available data showed that Pune had the largest Internet-user base in the country, and connectivity indoors as well as on the roads was equally important for the city’s tech-savvy population.
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| Explaining the pricing, Kareer said, “The payment mechanism will be something similar to the recharge cards used by mobile phone service providers.”
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| The Vice-President of Intel Software and Solutions Group, Rick Echevarria, said the company had successfully commissioned wireless connectivity projects in many cities of the world, including Portland in the US and some cities in Germany.
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| To a query, he said Intel would prescribe the most stringent standards for data security clubbed with access codes.
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| He also hinted that Intel might also come into the project as a vendor of services through the company’s appropriate subsidiary at a later stage.
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| Intel’s mandate includes creating a scalable, high-performance technical architecture and detailed design that will fulfil PMC’s requirements.
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| Intel will also provide information and training to PMC functionaries in wireless technology. Intel will develop the complete road map to make Pune wire-free by setting out specifications and identifying the vendors.
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| “The selection of the vendors will be through a transparent bidding process,” Kareer said.
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| The project was an extension of the efforts undertaken by the city corporation “to create facilities for the economic development of the city”, Kareer said, adding that the project might envisage participation of telecom operators in terms of using their towers for installing the Wi-Fi and WiMax capabilities. |
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