Public Wi-Fi will enable 40 million new connected internet users and contribute USD20 billion to India’s GDP by 2019, according to a report by Analysys Mason.
Availability of public Wi-Fi service will drive around 100 million people in India to spend an additional USD 2 to 3 billion per year on handsets and a similar amount on mobile broadband services, said the market research firm. .
The report further highlights that the Investment in public WiFi can further unlock an opportunity for Mobile operators to offload excess data traffic from cellular networks, and deploy advanced technologies such as Hotspot 2.0 for ensuring interoperable roaming between cellular and Wi-Fi.
In addition to driving productivity improvements from high speed Wi-Fi for the overall economy, public WiFi can also translate into tangible benefits to GDP, by around USD20 billion between 2017-19 and at least USD10 billion per annum thereafter, said the market reseach firm.
The report further outlines an opportunity to develop a wider connectivity ecosystem with Public Wi-Fi as a key component, which can not only benefit users and wireless ISPs, but also telecom service providers, handset manufacturers and venue owners. TSPs in particular can benefit by monetising demand for faster mobile broadband and higher data volumes on their networks, as people get used to fast speeds and ubiquitous connectivity.
David Abecassis, Partner at Analysys Mason
Google and RailWire project to deploy high speed WiFi across 400 stations has shown that there was a technical and operational solution to providing high-quality public Wi-Fi to millions of Indians nationwide, on affordable terms.
K. Suri, Director, Partnership, India, Next Biliion Users, Google India
Our partnership with RailTel to bring high speed connectivity to millions of Indians across 400 train station, today stands as a lighthouse project for the industry and underscores the importance of investing in public Wi-Fi as a crucial step in getting high quality internet to everyone in India.
