Hyderabad: The entire Osmania University campus will be Wi-Fi enabled under the Digital India scheme by February next year, helping students get quick access to a wide range of e-journals, research papers and other academic resources. Work has begun under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology initiative along with the Ministry of Human Resources Development. The free Wi-Fi on campus will prove a gift to students and research scholars of OU which will be entering its centenary year in 2017. The state government has not granted any money till now for the centenary celebrations.
Prof Battu Satyanarayana of Chemistry department who is coordinating the Wi-Fi enabling works on campus said that there will be two core switches connected to six zonal switches which will be further connected to 1,365 routers located in around 114 buildings in the campus. While 1GB bandwidth is being provided as of now by the National Knowledge Network, it can be increased further depending on the requirement, said Prof Satyanarayana. Each student will be provided ID and Password for accessing the WiFi. As of now, cables have been laid across the campus through which optic fibers will pass that will connect the switches. Routers are being fitted on a daily basis in all buildings.
The total cost for enabling free Wi-Fi on campus is around Rs 10 crore being borne by the Central government. All the equipment is being procured from Cisco of which some important ones like the switches are being imported from Europe. While the switches cost around '41 lakhs each, each router cost around Rs 41,000. Even if one of the core switches fails the system will be such that the other switch will ensure there is no disruption in WiFi. As of now the WiFi in university covers only hostels and portions of a few buildings.
