DoT Says Private Firms Can’t Offer Wi-Fi Just via Registration, May Ask Trai to Reconsider Recommendations

The telecom department (DoT) may soon ask the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to revisit its public Wi-Fi networks recommendation and provide alternative suggestions for the same.

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The regulator in its recommendations said that private entities or public data offices (PDO) through registration could offer public Wi-Fi services. However, the DoT is of the view that there’s no possibility of this given existing rules mandate such entities to take licences from the government to offer data services.

A senior official told the Economic Times that the Telegraph Act clearly mandates that the process “should be through giving licenses.”

Another government official further told the publication said that PDO aggregators are different from a public call office (PCO), or a cyber café, thereby they will serve as a customer service on a permanent basis, giving Wi-Fi as a re-seller.

“Prima facie, it (recommendations) will go back to Trai with DoT’s views,” the second official further said.

In a bid a give Indi­a’s pubic Wi-Fi doma­in a major push, the Trai recently said that it would start a pilot project, called Wi-Fi Access Network Interface (W­ANI).

For the pilot, the regulator has in­vited all ecosystem players, including all companies, app pr­oviders and hardware or software provide­rs that will set up public Wi-Fi hotspot­s.

These Wi-Fi hotspots will be called Publ­ic Data Offices (PDO­s) and will offer pa­y-as-you-go ‘sachet sized’ wi-fi service priced between Rs 2 and Rs 20, making internet access affo­rdable for the common public.