Instead of creating Wi-Fi zones (a concept becoming popular abroad), should India not focus on cheap Night (Off peak) access through mobiles
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 11th Jun 2014
Media and Telecom service providers are celebrating moves by government and civic authorities to create Wi-Fi zones in public places. This entails civic authorities investing in putting in investment in telecom infrastructure so that people can access internet through their devices, while telecom service provider offers services to push up use of data services. The data access charges may be borne by user/customer or authority depending upon business model. In case of authority bearing the charge, it will be passed to user in some other form or to be passed to tax payers. The locality or institutions gets and image of being Tech friendly and improves investment climate or innovation etc. etc. In practice it is offering convenience to the rich with very limited impact on its own but a huge news value which may rub well with inbound tourists.
In India where we still have large swathes of our population not being able to access or use connectivity technologies like internet where the services needed by the population may not be available or more importantly not available for use/access in the language of the user/population, what we basically need is investment to push up the access and usage by majority. This requires not Wi Fi zones in some tony corners of the city or airports, but free access around say village post offices or village Tea stalls or public places like bus stands, railway stations so that common people can avail or taste the benefits. Subsidy can be offered for a defined number of years initially post which these should become chargeable.
The government actions should be two pronged where students and institutions should be encouraged creating websites offering services to users in different languages while rewarding those local institutions like post offices, tea stalls, rail & bus stations where such sites in local languages are accessed by maximum number of users. This creates jobs for developers as well as helps increase penetration of access devices like smart phones, laptops etc. This should bring in large swathes of population to have first hand experience with connectivity technologies and have impact in terms of change in ideology due to such interactions. This is assuming that a chunk of rural customer may stretch out to spare enough money to procure access devices, a few developers get motivated and raise investments to set up some target user friendly websites and services and ecosystem becomes ready for future. Considering that such projects may have huge but indirect potential to raise productivity, the government may explore to get cheap World bank long term financing and create suitable monitoring and implementation mechanisms which may include taking feedback from intended beneficiaries and bringing in necessary interventions.
In terms of costs and challenges in monitoring, this poses some challenge for which village panchayats may be consulted. The government institutions like bus stations and rail stations which are visited by large number of visitors should be tracked using technology itself and investments should be withdrawn where results may not be forthcoming. Later schemes for cheap access in off peak hours from pre and post paid telecom providers will take over to push connectivity.
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 11th Jun 2014
Media and Telecom service providers are celebrating moves by government and civic authorities to create Wi-Fi zones in public places. This entails civic authorities investing in putting in investment in telecom infrastructure so that people can access internet through their devices, while telecom service provider offers services to push up use of data services. The data access charges may be borne by user/customer or authority depending upon business model. In case of authority bearing the charge, it will be passed to user in some other form or to be passed to tax payers. The locality or institutions gets and image of being Tech friendly and improves investment climate or innovation etc. etc. In practice it is offering convenience to the rich with very limited impact on its own but a huge news value which may rub well with inbound tourists.
In India where we still have large swathes of our population not being able to access or use connectivity technologies like internet where the services needed by the population may not be available or more importantly not available for use/access in the language of the user/population, what we basically need is investment to push up the access and usage by majority. This requires not Wi Fi zones in some tony corners of the city or airports, but free access around say village post offices or village Tea stalls or public places like bus stands, railway stations so that common people can avail or taste the benefits. Subsidy can be offered for a defined number of years initially post which these should become chargeable.
The government actions should be two pronged where students and institutions should be encouraged creating websites offering services to users in different languages while rewarding those local institutions like post offices, tea stalls, rail & bus stations where such sites in local languages are accessed by maximum number of users. This creates jobs for developers as well as helps increase penetration of access devices like smart phones, laptops etc. This should bring in large swathes of population to have first hand experience with connectivity technologies and have impact in terms of change in ideology due to such interactions. This is assuming that a chunk of rural customer may stretch out to spare enough money to procure access devices, a few developers get motivated and raise investments to set up some target user friendly websites and services and ecosystem becomes ready for future. Considering that such projects may have huge but indirect potential to raise productivity, the government may explore to get cheap World bank long term financing and create suitable monitoring and implementation mechanisms which may include taking feedback from intended beneficiaries and bringing in necessary interventions.
In terms of costs and challenges in monitoring, this poses some challenge for which village panchayats may be consulted. The government institutions like bus stations and rail stations which are visited by large number of visitors should be tracked using technology itself and investments should be withdrawn where results may not be forthcoming. Later schemes for cheap access in off peak hours from pre and post paid telecom providers will take over to push connectivity.