In April, BSNL had announced its plan to connect Panchayats in India through high-speed WiFi and now this project is being scaled up to urban centres in the country.
In partnership with QuadGen Wireless, a Bangalore-based wireless solutions company, BSNL is going to install WiFi internet facilities in 2,000 cities across its major markets in India. The company has already set up 2,500 WiFi hotspots in India and plans to scale the volume to 20,000 for 600 Million users.
Hotspot facility will be set up in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu in the next 2-3 years as BSNL and QuadGen work their way through smaller towns.
“On one hand, we have mobile networks that are completely clogged and on the other hand, we have this enormous backhaul capacity lying idle with BSNL that can be used to offer high internet at low cost. The Wi-Fi service will allow not only BSNL customers to connect to the internet but anyone who has a smartphone,” said CS Rao, Founder and Chairman – QuadGen.
Will These WiFi Hotspots be Useful?
The service will be free for the first 15 minutes of use, following payment options for the next amount of time clocked on the internet. Plans start at Rs. 30 for half an hour to Rs. 200 for a month. BSNL promises the speed to be up to 20MBPS, so expect something lesser than that but definitely worth the buck.
QuadGen is also testing a technology so that a person automatically connects to WiFi as soon as he/she enters the zone.
BSNL has lots to catch up with private players like Airtel, Vodafone and Idea that already have presence in a lot of circles in India and provide better speeds and reliability. BSNL is lesser known for reliable connection, but offers exorbitant data volumes at very low rates.
With Reliance Jio entering the market to disrupt the 4G space, BSNL needs to act fast to ensure it does not lose out on potential and existing customers, especially because Jio has still not announced their official launch and we are atleast few months away from Jio being available to public at large!
Source: BS
