Free Wi-Fi was one of the promises that the Aam Aadmi Party made when it contested the Delhi Lok Sabha elections for the second time. But, no concrete steps were being taken to give Delhiites what they were promised; and no, we are not talking about other amenities but just the Internet. Now, it seems Mr Arvind Kejriwal has decided to gift Delhiites free Wi-Fi access by February next year.
Really? Next year? That’s a long wait right, but better late than never. So, hopefully we will all be accessing free Wi-Fi at prominent public places in and Delhi. But, before you start jumping with joy, we would like to tell that this facility would be given to residents on the basis of limited data usage.
The government might float an Expression of Interest (EOI) for the project by the end of this month, and ask companies to submit their Request for Proposal (RfP) in June.
So, while the infrastructure gets up and running, what Delhi government would let you access for free using Wi-Fi includes: browsing, social media websites (Facebook/Twitter), email, WhatsApp and other basic services. However, you might have to pay for watching videos, video chat and downloading content.
“We will work on ensuring a minimum speed of 512Kbps to each user to make it a better experience. We will be very strict on user experience and uninterrupted service,” Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of IT, Adarsh Shastri told PTI.
The government is considering fixing the data usage to 50MB per day but a call is yet to be taken in that regard.
