Wipro to offer free Wi-Fi to employees in company buses

Employees of India's third largest code services firm, Wipro, area unit set to face disruptions in their sleep, reading and dreaming once they jaunt add Bangalore's pot-holed roads. Technology has taken a reverse to haunt them.

Azim Premji's Wipro is in advanced talks with Sistema Shyam Teleservices ( SSTL) to implement a Wi-Fi-based knowledge property answer in company buses to prod the staff to form higher use of their travelling time, 2 folks conversant in the matter aforesaid. The move is geared toward up employees productivity and also the company has initiated a run which can be extended to different locations.

Under the deal, doubtless to be inked later this month, Sistema Shyam would equip some 100-odd Wipro employees buses within the country's IT capital with WiFi hotspots. an outsized proportion of Wipro's workers based mostly in urban center travel for a minimum of 2 hours on the average on the bus, consistent with the folks. "Access to high-speed net either on their smartphones, laptops or tablets is taken into account a robust tool to cut back unproductive hours spent in travelling to workplace," one among them aforesaid.

While the jury is out on whether or not such property can really improve productivity, anyone conversant in the infamous urban center traffic, wherever covering 5 kilometers may take up to AN hour in peak traffic, will well perceive the explanations for Wipro's move. "Wipro is examining the likelihood of constructing on the market high-speed knowledge property on the bus company for workers.

However, this is often at AN beta stage," aforesaid a Wipro representative in AN emailed response to ET's queries. Sistema Shyam declined to comment. a bigger proportion of Wipro's one,46,000 IT workers area unit based mostly out of urban center, of that several would use the buses to urge to figure. ET spoke to a crosswise of IT professionals, together with Wipro workers, to urge a way of their enthusiasm to the conception of property, at knowledge speeds of up to nine.8 mbps, on their bus rides to workplace.

While nearly everybody conceded that high-speed property on the move may facilitate in responding to imperative official mails, they felt it had been unlikely to figure in accomplishing core IT functions. "Even with high-speed Wi-Fi property, it's nearly not possible to try to to crucial committal to writing, net services or testing as these functions need back-up supplying support like access to net servers, information servers, a committal to writing repository and embedded devices, that area unit unlikely to be on the market within a bus," aforesaid a 28-year Bangalore-based Wipro technology skilled on condition of namelessness.

"Some sleep throughout the long journey within the bus would additionally facilitate employees be recent for the laborious day ahead," the skilled aforesaid. Another engineer engaging at one among India's biggest IT companies in urban center aforesaid that it might be powerful to duplicate AN workplace setting within a bus, given the distractions within a bus and also the wonky urban center roads. Also, the shortage of privacy in a very bus would not yield confidential peer and shopper communication.

Some time unit professionals, however, expect Wipro to pitch this as a employees authorisation or a private productivity improvement drive that permits workers to pay their long travelling time a lot of usefully. "I doubt Wipro can insist that the high-speed property is being offered in buses strictly for job work. If workers additionally comply with do job work throughout commute time, it might be win-win for Wipro in increasing productivity," says E Balaji, former CEO of time unit firm Randstad Asian nation.

Sunil Goel, manager of time unit firm GlobalHunt Asian nation, says Wipro will gain if it will persuade workers to pay simply half-hour each morning to clear their backlog of emails on their thanks to work. Project leaders can even assign tasks to team members from the bus itself. If the subsume Wipro comes through, Sistema Shyam is probably going to focus on similar company accounts. the corporate is learnt to possess established business development groups across its nine-circle footprint.

Data services presently account for thirty fifth of SSTL's revenue. the corporate, that runs CDMA-based mobile services in 9 regions beneath the MTS complete, is probably going to supply the routers from Airlink Wireless for the Wipro deal. These routers can at first be integrated with SSTL's mobile network within the town to produce Wi-Fi access within the buses, which can become mobile hotspots.