PM-WANI rule changes seen to give big boost to Wi-Fi hotspots, create lakhs of micro-entrepreneurs
PM-WANI framework guidelines will encourage more individuals to run Wi-Fi hotspots within their local community, thus creating lakhs of micro-entrepreneurs in India, Broadband India Forum (BIF) said Tuesday.
BIF, which represents technology firms like Meta, Google, Amazon, TCS etc, also refuted the arguments given by telcos that PM-WANI was redundant, and it can cause revenue loss. “If India were to establish 50 million PM-WANI hotspots, as targeted, telcos could gain an additional Rs 60,000 crore in revenue annually from bandwidth sales in addition to the benefit they will get by having more broadband users, which they might not reach otherwise,” BIF said in a statement.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has amended the guidelines for the Prime Minister Wi-Fi Access Network Interface (PM-WANI) allowing roaming between public data office aggregator (PDOA), removing the need for a commercial agreement between a telco and PDO, allowing the PDOs or public data office to use the existing access points for public and private use. Also, the PDOs have been permitted to accept mobile data offload from the telcos, thereby helping ease the congestion on the mobile network.
BIF said these amendments are likely to unlock the potential of PM-WANI for both public Wi-Fi providers and users, making affordable internet accessible to millions.
“The amendments will help unleash the true potential of PM-WANI by providing structural changes through ease of doing business, which shall help in directly addressing the
