In a bid to fulfill another of its poll promises, the AAP Government has proposed to provide free WiFi usage of up to 1 GB per month in all Government and private colleges within one year. The move yielded mixed reactions with some claiming it to be a climbdown by AAP that earlier had promised WiFi without any rider.
Speaking on ‘Wireless Broadband Vision Forum’ at FICCI Federation House, vice-chairman of Delhi Dialogue Commission Ashish Khetan said as part of the first phase of its implementation, the free WiFi will be provided in all Government and private colleges. He also added that the first phase will be completed within one year.
In second and third phases, public WiFi will be provided in rural areas and unauthorised colonies respectively, he added. There are roughly 275 rural and urban villages which don’t have access of internet in the Capital.
“The minimum speed of the WiFi that we are proposing is 1 Mbps for good user experience and each user should get 1 GB of downloads for a month free. In the first phase, which should not take more than one year to complete, free WiFi will be available in both private and Government colleges in Delhi,” he said.
Sharing about the positive impact the free WiFi service will have on Delhi’s economy, Khetan said, “We hope to make Delhi a hub of trade and business, particularly small and medium scale enterprises. We also want Delhi to become a tourism hub. We are confident that when public WiFi will be available in Delhi in full force, it will increase tourism.”
Sharing about the business model of the scheme, Khetan said the Delhi Government would like to have rights of advertisements of public interest campaigns and those promoting the policies of the Government of Delhi during the free-usage of the service.
He added that the infrastructure, however, will be owned by the companies which have expertise in the field as the Government doesn’t want to own any infrastructure of these services.
“We are also proposing that the Government should not own infrastructure and the payment module should be an opex (operational expenditure) module based on total data consumption. It will ensure that Government only pays according to actual usage,” Khetan said.
“One thing that we want to do is that when we announce public WiFi, the experience of the service should be the best. When we announce a policy, it should be on an expected line. It should be on the expectations and aspirations of the people,” he said. Khetan empahasised that the promise of WiFi got the AAP Government maximum applaud. “The move made us popular among the youth. But applaud from the elderly in the villages caught us by surprise,” he said.