NEW DELHI: In view of the importance attached to public Wi-Fi systems, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has extended time for responses to its consultation paper till 9 December 2016 but stressed no further extension would be given.

The paper issued on 15 November was the second one issued on the subject of Wi-Fi and dealt with scalable public interoperability of Wi-Fi networks.

Earlier, TRAI had said it realised the importance of public Wi-Fi networks as complementary to existing landline and cellular mobile infrastructure in improving broadband penetration and adoption of Digital India. Earlier on 13 July 2016, TRAI had issued a paper on “Proliferation of Broadband through Public Wi-Fi Networks” which was followed by reactions and then a workshop in Bengaluru.

The objective of the new paper posing six questions is two-fold:

a) To explore whether the model proposed in this Note can be incorporated in Public Wi-Fi networks to promote appropriate monetisation and business models for sustainable and scalable infrastructure deployment.

b) To explore the roles of different stakeholders in the Public Wi-Fi network value chain and build an ecosystem for promoting scalable and sustainable partnerships for large scale nation wide deployment.

Also read:  Public Wi-Fi: TRAI plans to evolve model, releases paper