Telecom regulator TRAI on Thursday recommended small entrepreneurs and shop owners be allowed to become Wi-Fi hotspot venues and team up with ‘aggregators’ to offer low-cost public Internet services in a PCO-type model.
“Since there is a significant section of the population still to be connected, measures taken to enable larger service providers to provide public Wi-Fi...Will not suffice....Steps need to be taken to ensure that in addition to existing service providers, small providers can also enter the public Wi-Fi ecosystem and have the capability and incentives to provide public Wi-Fi on a small scale,” TRAI said.
TRAI has suggested the concept of ‘Public Data Offices’ and ‘aggregators’ for providing public Wi-Fi services at cheaper rates.
According to TRAI, the Wi-Fi venues can be provided by local shop owners or grocery stores and Rs aggregator’ can provide last mile Wi-Fi services and seamless experience for authentication and payments. The aggregator can buy bandwidth from Internet service providers and re-sell them.
The aggregators would not require any specific licence, but would have to adhere to registration and record keeping requirements prescribed by the telecom department, TRAI said.
“Further, the PDOs will ensure that users can buy the data amount based on their needs. The availability of data services for small token values will stimulate the demand for public Wi-Fi services,” it said