Bharti Airtel in talks with Chinese vendors to launch mifi devices
Airtel, the country's top mobile phone company, is in advanced talks with Chinese OEMs to bring 'mifi' devices that will help people in India to access fourth generation services from their 3G smartphones on the move.
Since 4G phones are at least a year away in India, the world's fifth-largest telco by customers sees the 'mifi' as an ideal intermediary device to put in the hands of its 8 million-plus 3G users to ring in massification of data usage.
A tiny, battery-operated, wireless device about half the size of a cellphone, a mifi is easy to carry and can help a user hook on to a 4G network through the wifi feature in his 3G phone. At present, a mobile user can plug on to Airtel's 4G network with a 3G phone using a device known as an indoor customer premise equipment or CPE, but he would be confined to a room. A mifi device, on the contrary, will give him mobility. Since a mifi device can also provide 4G connectivity from a tablet, it is likely to be positioned as a mass-market tool by Bharti to prise open the relatively underpenetrated tablet market, which can complement its small-screen 3G offerings.
