Political India: Engaging America

From Asia Media in UCLA (Employer of pioneering journalist Ananth Krishnan :))

Getting a newspaper early in the morning is no big deal for us but for Saki Nakamura, a 36-year-old Japanese staying in Bangalore, getting a Japanese newspaper, early in the morning is like a dream come true.

With a number of foreign and Indian firms triggering off a revolution in wi-fi printing the wave is just not confined to newspapers alone.

Companies like Canadabased Newspaperdirect.com, USbased Satellitenewspaper.com, which licence other firms to print newspapers and Bangalore-based firms like Wipro e-Peripherals (printing) and Convergent Communications (wi-fi) are putting in place the arsenal required for the wi-fi printing movement.

For foreigners living in Bangalore and other metros, this comes as great morning news -- though at quite high a price. "Although getting the news on the Net is relatively cheaper at hotels where you have a wi-fi connection in the rooms, there is nothing like holding our Japanese paper in hand -- when you go down for breakfast," says Nakamura, who visits Bangalore about four times a year.

And if a US citizen wants to literally lay his hands on the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times here in India, this would be possible too -- with no time lag. Like the way it is possible to get The Times of India in a printed format in Los Angeles.

Not in a regular newsprint form but on A3 sized paper, the content is the same as in the original paper but the price is likely to be exorbitant because the newspaper, the hosting as well as the printing companies have to get their due.

But, those who really need that newspaper fix are ready to pay, going by the surveys done by the hotels and the printing and wi-fi players. And, this is just not for the newspapers alone.
Wi-fi printing also enables hotel guests to get their documents printed from their rooms or from anywhere else in the hotel.

"Today, you have to go to a business centre to get printouts but we are working on pilot project with a couple of five star hotels where you can give the print command from the room and the printouts are brought to you," says Venkat Kedalaya, CEO, Convergent Communications.

Going a step further, WeP, has come out with its portal where you just have to log on to get anything (a photograph or a letter or a 500-page official document).

"Sitting in New Jersey, you can send a print command to the nearest location listed on the site to get a letter or a photograph of your kid and get it delivered to your parents living in Bangalore if they are not comfortable with a PC," says Thomas Anand, CTO,WeP.