 "India misses its 10-million target of public Wi-Fi coverage by end of 2022")
Nearly five years after public Wi-Fi was pitched by the government as a key driver of broadband coverage, India has missed its public Wi-Fi hotspot rollout target.
According to the National Digital Communications Policy, 2018, the count is just 0.5 million, whereas the target set by the government was 10 million by the end of 2022, according to a report in The Economic Times (ET).
According to Statista, a German market research agency, the number of public Wi-Fi hotspots per million population is 175 times that of India in the UK, 50 times in the US, and 75 times in China.
At this rate, industry experts have said that India is also likely to miss its 50 million public Wi-Fi hotspots target by 2030, set out in the latest Bharat 6G vision document.
One of the reasons behind the failure of public Wi-Fi is the exorbitant internet leased line charges — ranging between Rs 4 lakh and Rs 8 lakh per annum — that telecom operators or internet service providers (ISPs) charge public data offices (PDOs) and public data office aggregators (PDOAs).
The PDOs and PDOAs buy bulk internet bandwidth and deliver public Wi-Fi services to end-users.
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However, telecom operators said their immediate priority is using their bandwidth and fibre resources optimally to deliver quality broadband connectivity to their own customers at affordable rates before considering any price cuts for outsiders, such as PDOs/PDOAs, towards public Wi-Fi, according to the ET report.
Sources at the Broadband India Forum (BIF) said that the PM-WANI public Wi-Fi programme can boost the country’s digital infrastructure in rural areas and increase fast broadband access for the common man.
The forum has sought immediate intervention from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to improve the business case of public Wi-Fi.