BANGALORE: What's happened to Bangalore Unwired, the state's ambitious project to bring Bangalore on a par with cities like San Jose, Philadelphia, Westminster and Taipei in terms of last-mile Internet access?
It envisaged providing easy and seamless Internet access to individuals, households, hotels, hospitals, schools and corporates, sans cable wires, modems or dial-up devices - from any point in the city.
A request for proposal issued last year set January 26, 2007, as the commencement date. However, the state is yet to complete the evaluation of bids submitted by four consortia, ITI (with SRIT & RailTel), Keonics (with Airtel & Arasur), Microsense (with VSNL), and Pronto Networks (with Aircel).
As per the RFP, the selection of vendors should have been finalised by January 16.
Interestingly, some bidders like Keonics (Airtel), Aircel and Microsense have announced independent 'unwire' projects.
This has dampened the spirits of other bidders, still waiting for finalisation of the vendor. "The project is already delayed by two months. It looks like the project got mired in bureaucratic tangles. Now that some bidders are launching independent projects, the entire bidding exercise looks like a mockery,"said an official.
Others allege that a telecom lobby is working against the project because most of the bidders have proposed much lower rates.
[B]One bidder is said to have even proposed basic [U]Internet for free[/U] and real-time bandwidth-on-demand.[/B] "Once implemented, the project could impact adversely the revenues of telecom and Internet service providers,"said a source.
The head of the evaluation committee, S Sadagopan, told TOI that the project has run into a slight complication. "One of the bidders who broke away from its consortium now wants to re-enter the fray. If everything goes well, an order can be issued in 10 days."
At the time of filing the expression of interest, Pronto Networks partnered with Spectranet. But later, while bidding, Pronto went with AirCel.
Following that, Spectranet submitted an independent bid, rejected on the grounds that only the front-end partner could change the partner or bid independently. Spectranet has now raised objections to this.
According to H G Srivara, AMD of Karnataka Biotechnology and Information Technology Services, the delay has been on account of a move to enlarge the geographical scope of the project.
"When the project was planned a year ago, it was meant only for the city. Now we are thinking of the peripheries and fringes too."
We can only hope that 'Bangalore Unwired' doesn't get mired in bureaucratic tangles, and will soon redefine the way Bangaloreans live and work.
hyeah: So I will end up having two connections for next month.:hap2: A direct translation from my mothertongue
will surely post the feedback . Let me see how many says he will take to install the wireless router 
