Recently, Delhi’s AAP Government announced its plan to provide free Wi-Fi in Delhi in coming few months. But the Govt. has been at receiving end of late, due to its failure on delivering that promise. There however, might finally be some respite on offer, as global giants including the likes of Google, Cisco and Facebook have shown interest in partnering with the Delhi Government for its project, reports ET.
As the process of rolling out free city-wide Wi-Fi gathers momentum, government officials are expecting to get support from some of the world’s best known tech firms by helping them to implement the project across capital of the nation.
A Delhi govt. official informed Economic Times,
Google, Facebook, Cisco, which is a global leader, Aruba, Ericsson, Vodafone, all of these companies, including many domestic firms, have all consulted with us and shown interest.
The anonymous official also revealed that the RFP tender document has been drafted and is waiting for final approval from the administration.
The Government of Delhi will be providing free high-speed internet to the masses through its public WiFi. However, it currently restricts users with the amount of data he/she can use. But with networking infrastructure giants like Google, Cisco joining in, the restriction might soon get lifted off.
Earlier, Adarsh Shastri, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of IT, said,
We will not fix a time but will restrict bandwidth. Internet will be charged on the basis of data usage per day. Once the data limit is exhausted, users can avail the service by paying for extra usage. Every day the system will be reset.
Adarsh Shastri is also overseeing the planning and consultation process. He also confirmed the interest shown by the companies while speaking with ET.
The interest level is very high (among global firms) because of the huge opportunity that they feel and the fact that this is a huge database. From a social standpoint they all want to participate in bridging the digital divide. Also, Delhi being a capital city, if you do something here, you are able to showcase something not just in India but also rest of the world.
Along with the data restrictions, users will also be restricted from watching videos, do video chats, and download content off the internet for free. It will be working at a minimum speed of 512 KB p/s.
In the initial phase, Govt. plans to install hotspots across 1,000 key areas and plans to have 50,000-80,000 hotspots which will cover about 60% of Delhi.
FEATURED IMAGE : Erin Pettigrew // FLICKR // CC 2.0 // IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED
