New rules may soon enable shopkeepers, restaurants to sell Wi-Fi services

New Delhi: The government is working on a framework to allow shopkeepers, restaurant and other small businessmen to retail WiFi services on a model similar to yesteryears public calling booths, a top official said Thursday. The model was suggested by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to set up Public Data Offices (PDOs) to enhance wifi hotspots across the country but it was put on the back burner due to opposition from telecom service providers.
Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of an ITU-APT Foundation of India event, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said, “We will bring some architecture of PDOs.”
“Whether it will be exactly the same as Trai has recommended I don’t know. But in principle, yes we will try to come up with an architecture. We do want to come with a large number of small infrastructure providers like kirana (grocery) stores etc,” Sundararajan mentioned.