Page 156 - DCAP311_DCAP607_WIRELESS_NETWORKS

Wireless Networks

Notes In addition to this, there was a hillock in Loni (Lontek) because of which there was no clear
Line of Sight (LOS) and the RF network required clear LOS.
The institutes like Pharmacy College, ITI and Home Science Institute were not connected.
The wireless RF towers were installed by Convergent in a record time of three days at ten
locations.”
Technically the range of the RF specified by Convergent was for a 5 km radius. Since this
proved insufficient for connecting faraway towns like Shirdi and Rahata that were 19 kms
from the hub, custom enclosures were designed to boost the range of the transmitters.
WLAN for WMAN
Chidambara, Consultant-Wireless & Education, Convergent Communications (India)
Pvt. Ltd., said, “The products which were available that time were typically used in a
WLAN solution. To make it work in a WMAN was a technical challenge. We developed
and manufactured certain products in-house in Bangalore like the accessories—antennas,
RF amplifiers, lightning arrestors, power dividers and weather-proof outdoor housing
enclosures. Lucent’s Wireless LAN bridges and wireless NICs were the core products that
were used in the implementation. The reason why we chose to implement WMAN was
because Pravaranagar does not have basic telephone infrastructure and getting a leased
line was not only difficult during those days but also expensive. With WMAN in place
Pravaranagar has dedicated 2 Mbps connectivity.”

People Behind the movement
PRAGATI began four years back. Shri Balasaheb Vikhe Patil, Minister of Heavy Industries
Government of India and Dr. Y.K.Alagh, M.P & former Minister for Science & Technology,
Government of India, took a personal interest in the project. They visited ISRO to assess
the possibility of getting their interactive technology in 1999. Then they had a series of
discussions with then Director General, Dr. N.Seshagiri, of National Informatics Centre
(NIC), Delhi.
The final decision to assign the project to NIC was taken in June 1999. The target date for
the completion of Phase I was set as 15th August 1999 and it took six weeks to complete
this phase.

Building WMAN-Phase I
First, a suitably high location—Rural Polytechnic for Women—was identified. The VSAT
was installed by the NIC engineers and was connected to a typical Windows NT setup
of Primary Domain Controller (PDC) and Backup Domain Controller (BDC). During
Phase I, 13 sites were networked including schools, professional colleges, Pravara Medical
Trust hospital, Pravara Co-operative Bank, Krishi Vigyan Kendra and Padmashri Dr.
Vitthalrao Vikhe Patil Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana (sugar factory). These institutions were
then connected to the Intranet using a 64 Kbps FTDMA VSAT at the Rural Polytechnic for
Women. RF towers at 11 other institutions with clear line of sight with the main hub were
constructed. At the remote sites 16 Pentium II PCs from Wipro were used. The wireless
network was connected through Avaya Access Points to a hub and the PDC and BDC were
also connected to the same hub.

With this, all the institutions have Internet access (for browsing and also sending and
receiving mail) and can communicate amongst themselves. Within each institution,
there can be any number of computers connected through a cable network and all these
computers can also access the Internet and communicate with PCs in other institutions.
The equipment used in phase I are 64 KBPS FTDMA VSAT- Gilat with Sky surfer
accessories, RF Access Point-WavePOINT-II_99UT12206350, Wireless Cards – 2 Mbps
Lucent’s Wavelan Cards, 10 Mbps NICs, and 10 Mbps Hubs.
Contd...

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