Telecom firms should back rollout of public wi-fi hotspots: Niti Aayog secy

New Delhi: Telecom operators need to support the rollout of public wi-fi hotspots to gain edge in the technology space, Niti Aayog special secretary Yaduvendra Mathur said on Friday.

“TSPs (telecom service providers) … also need to support this move (rollout of public wi-fi). If you do not allow for hotspots to roll out, we will be again behind the curve,” Mathur said at a Broadband India Forum event.

To push proliferation of wi-fi hotspots, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had recommended that a new set of players, to be called pubic data office aggregator (PDOA), should be allowed to resell Internet services through yesteryear PCO type of set-up. These will be called public data offices.