India's public WiFi ambitions fall, while Telcos is resistant to subsidizing their competitors | Mint

Public WiFi -Hotspots looked like a good idea five years ago when the government introduced a scheme to provide affordable internet nationwide through a network of neighborhood data providers. Highspeed 5G network services have not yet been rolled out, and WiFi was still the most reliable way to access the Internet. However, Prime Minister Wi-Fi Access Network Interface (PM-Wani) scheme struggles to start as the most important stakeholders argue about the rates. The government has now suggested that telecommunications operators offer bandwidth at low rates to neighborhood stores and other retailers who deploy WiFi hotspots under the PM-Wani scheme, but the county cox considers these so-called public data offices, or PDOs, as competition. “They buy the service (bandwidth) for resale. Why should any operator be forced to provide his network services to his competitors at the arbitrary regulated prices for building their network,” Ravi Gandhi, president and chief regulatory officer of Reliance Jio, said during a recent discussion to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Tri). Mint was present at the discussion. Trai, in his recent order of the telecommunications tariff (71st amendment), suggested that counting foods do not ask PDOs more than double asking their retail customers for fiber-to-home services. Jio, in a written submission to Trai, estimated that if the reduced tariff rate order is implemented, a PDO can get unlimited data at £ 798 from telecom operators and sell at least 1 GB (Gigabyte) data each to 1,000 customers at £ 10 per GB. Telecom operators, who ask about £ 19 for a 1 GB mobile data suit, may lose their users. In September, the Department of Telecommunications changed the PM-Wani framework and removed the requirement for PDOs to enter into commercial agreements with telecom operators for internet connection. This has been done to ensure that county food does not force PDOs to get bandwidth through expensive internet -rented lines, but an ordinary Ftth broadband connection, which telcos is not in the mood. ‘Not in competition’, the government has aimed at deploying approximately 10 million public WiFi hotspots across the country by 2022 and 50 million by 2030. Only about 280,000 hotspots have been deployed so far, and almost half of them are in Delhi per government data. As on December 5, the number of unique PM-Wani users was 1.8 million, and a total of 58.55 pb (petabytes) data was consumed, the data showed. One PB is about 1 million GB. Broadband India Forum, which represents large technical companies, blamed the lack of public WiFi hotspots in India for ‘robbery prizes’ by telecom operators. It is alleged that telecommunications operators charge up to £ 8 lakh per year from PDOs for providing bandwidth. TV Ramachandran, president of Broadband India Forum, said at the Trai meeting: “This Premier Wani architecture is not in competition with telcos, it is complementary to them.” It will add value to the mobile operators … PM-Wani is an important element of digital public infrastructure where affordability and useful need. argued that broadband rates for small entrepreneurs who deploy WiFi hotspots should be the same as the retail-FTTH rates. Registry there are more than 200 aggregators for public data offices working in the country. “FTTH is a retail product and is not intended for resale. PDOs function as commercial resellers serving several end users simultaneously and a claim of consistent bandwidth, reliability and network management for which FTTH was not designed,” Tatts said at the Tri -meeting. According to the PM-Wani data, about 45% of the public Wi-Fi hotspots deployed so far under the scheme are in Delhi. “We realized that the deployment wasn’t really in the rural sector. It was invested significantly in the urban sector,” said Chief Regulatory Officer Ambika Khurana, Vodafone Idea, who only recently started rolling out his 5G services. First published: 12 Apr 2025, 06:00 AM IST