Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) plans to set up about 40,000 Wi-Fi hotspots across the country. The Wi-Fi hotspots will be established over the next three years with investments pegged at Rs 60 billion.
BSNL is also exploring the option of rolling out Wi-Fi hotspot through capital expenditure model. The company will soon float a tender for the same, while installing its own equipment for such Wi-Fi hotspots. Meanwhile, the operator has set a target of rolling out about 2,500 hotspots at 250 locations across the country in 2015-16.
Earlier, BSNL was not making any investments in rolling out Wi-Fi hotspots, instead it had in place revenue sharing model with private players. As part of the model, private players established the Wi-Fi hotspots and had the mandate to maintain it for five years and manage the sales and marketing functions as well. BSNL on its part provided the backhaul connectivity through optic fibre cable with speeds varying between 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps.
