WiFi in India: Opportunities & Challenges

Wi-Fi Alliance has published a report about WiFi in India titled The Future for Wi-Fi in India: Opportunities & Challenges .

"The overall Indian Wi-Fi market (including WLAN hardware, systems integration and software services, not including embedded devices, laptops) is predicted to grow from the current $41.57 million to exceed $744 million by 2012 (CAGR of 61.4%). The necessary market drivers are in place to propel the growth, development and deployment of Wi-Fi into a mainstream technology across the country."

It's an interesting read. It basically predicts a substantive increase in broadband penetration in India, and hence an increased demand of WiFi hardware. The report puts the broadband subscriber base in Nov 2006 at about 2 million only. With 2007 being declared as broadband year by Indian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, it predicts a phenomenal increase in broadband subscribers this year.

Also note the numbers about the PC vs laptops purchase in India.

"The PC segment continues to grow at about 22-24% per year but the laptop seems likely to continue to grow at 100% rates over the next two to three years."

Let's see how it develops over next two-three years. I am more interested in seeing broadband services becoming reliable as well as cheaper in India, and seeing more and more people using Internet for productive uses. Can broadband revolution in India imitate the success of mobile revolution? Seems difficult, but not impossible. What do you think?