Residents of Delhi will be getting free Wi-Fi access early next year and unlike the services being offered at public locations such as the Connaught Place where you get a fixed time period of costless internet, usage here will be based on the amount of data being consumed. The government is currently aiming to flip the switch on this service by February of 2016.
Bringing free Wi-Fi access to the residents of Delhi is important as it’s one of pre-poll promises made by the AAP government. A report states instead of a time-based approach, there will be a data cap on free usage. Officials are looking to set the daily data limit to 50MB and maintain a minimum speed of 512Kbps.
Browsing the internet including viewing social media websites, checking emails and accessing services like WhatsApp will continue to be free. Other activities such as watching videos, live video chatting and downloading content will have you shell out money.
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The Times of India is reporting citing PTI as its source that as per a senior official, Expression of Interest (EOI) for the project will be released by the government by the end of this month with the Request for Proposal (RfP) arriving in June. It was also revealed that around 150 global companies have shown strong interest in the project.
To deploy the Wi-Fi network city-wide, the government has turned to existing systems in other countries for better understanding. Currently, the IT department and the Ground Water Survey and Development Agency (GSDA) are scouting 1000 possible locations for setting up hotspots across the city as part of the first phase of implementation.
As mentioned above, the free Wi-Fi services are expected to go live across Delhi in February.