Ludhiana going strong on wireless

Taking a cue from big metros of the country-the city of Ludhiana is not going to lag far behind on the wireless arena. A number of SMEs in the city have already started to take wireless connectivity quite seriously and are implementing wireless solutions to increase productivity.

"This city has a number of small and medium size businesses and a lot of them are now eyeing at wireless as a way to enhance productivity. We have implemented quite a few solutions and more are likely to come in the coming months. These are not highly complicated wireless solutions but simple 10 to 15 machine implementations," informed, Paramjit Singh
Juneja, CEO of Ludhiana-based Secant Technologies.

The city's industrial landscape is marked by a large number of small and medium class hosiery and cycling parts industry. Though there are not many wireless installations in these segments, solution providers like Secant are quite upbeat about the future growth of wireless in these segments.

"Ludhiana has more than 400 very small to small hosiery units alone and then there are cycling parts manufacturers as well. Wireless could prove to be a great asset for these segments to increase productivity and access information on the go," added Manoj Dhawan of IDM Solutions.

Convergence fuelling wireless 

Ludhiana is also experiencing its share of tryst with convergence on different fronts. There are digital devices like mobiles, cameras and a host of other
PDAs. Easy availability of these devices is in turn encouraging the wireless phenomenon in places like
Ludhiana.

"Recently a vendor did a digital convergence roadshow aimed at the SOHO segment of
Ludhiana. So initiatives like this are powering people to look beyond the conventional and go wireless," Paramjit added. 

With wireless coming up as an area of interest in the SME segment - Ludhiana's small system integrator community is bracing up to address this aptly. "We don't have many system integrators or solution providers. There are just about five or six good players in this segment. Now everybody is doing its best to address this segment of wireless and increase productivity while delivering wireless solutions," Paramjit explained.

ZIA ASKARI

NEW DELHI