* While New York is setting up 10,000 Wi-Fi stations across the city, India currently has around 31,518 wi-fi hotspots and a recent paper prepared by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) states that in order to reach the global benchmark of one hotspot for every 150 citizens, India needs to add 8 lakh more hotspots.
* “The situation of Wi-Fi hotspots is not encouraging in India as we represent one sixth of the world population whereas our share in Wi-Fi hotspots is less than 1/1,000,” Trai has said.
* In July, Trai issued a consultation paper seeking views on using public wi-fi networks to be able to provide affordable internet services. It also sought views on the regulatory and licensing hurdles being faced by service providers, and the measures need to be taken to address these issues.
* Earlier in May, Trai chairman RS Sharma said that the watchdog would soon begin consultations to explore a sustainable model for wi-fi in public places, considering that the models deployed hitherto both by private and state-owned firms have largely remained unsuccessful.
* “What we want is that user should be able to move from one place to another and seamlessly get connected, and without much hassles he should be connected. This is the architecture that we’re looking at — interoperability between wi-fi providers, seamless payment methods. These are some of the aspects of how you can create a structure which enables the wi-fi in public places,” Sharma had said.
* Through its paper Trai also sought views on integration of various networks, and has asked suggestions for measures that would be required to encourage interoperability between the wi-fi networks of different service providers, both within the country and internationally. It would also provide cheaper access to internet. As per Trai’s calculations cost of internet through wi-fi could cost Rs 0.02 per megabit as against Rs 0.23 per megabit on 2G/3G/4G networks.
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