The Delhi cabinet on Thursday approved free Wi-Fi hotspots across the national capital. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that Delhi will soon have a total of 11,000 Wi-Fi hotspot zones. “A total of 4,000 hotspots will be installed at bus shelters and 7,000 in various colonies. Each of the 70 Assembly constituency will get 100 hotspots,” he said.
This free Wi-Fi project is estimated to cost Rs 100 crore. Moreover, the project will be on ground in three-four months, Kejriwal said. He also promised that every user will get 15GB data per month, which is huge. He further added that all the necessary measures will be taken to ensure there is no misuse. “About 200 users can use the hotspots simultaneously having a speed of 200mbps in a radius of 50 meters,” he said.
“The free WiFi will be an addition to what people are already getting from the telecom companies,” he said. Calling it the first phase of WiFi installation, Kejriwal said once this phase is complete, “we will collate the learning from the experience and make provisions for additional hotspots if necessary in the next phase.” PWD Minister Satyendar Jain said the project is running on an opex model (operating expense) Service model.
“The entire capital investment in setting up the infrastructure will be made by the vendor. But the government will bear the operating cost of approximately Rs 100 crore per annum for providing 15GB free WiFi per month for all users.” The budget provision of around Rs 150 crore has already been kept in the current financial year for this work.
“Existing systems will also act as Wi-Fi range extenders,” the government said in a statement. The Chief Minister said his election promises had a deadline of five years, which will end in February 2020. “All our election promises had a deadline of five years and we will complete the projects by then,” Kejriwal said.
Besides, it was recently reported that Cisco has collaborated with Google for its ‘gStation’ offering that provides access to free and high-speed WiFi at public locations in India. Under the partnership, Cisco is providing the network infrastructure, and about 25 locations already live in Bengaluru. Furthermore, another 200 locations will go live in the coming months in the city.
– With inputs from IANS