1000 free WiFi hotspot zones in 521 locations of East Delhi by December

Very soon, people living across East Delhi will be able to enjoy ‘free’ WiFi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has announced. By the end of this year, more than 500 locations across East Delhi will be turned into high-speed WiFi zones, the Delhi government said.

However, the access to free internet will be allowed till a pre-determined limit every day. It was one of the key poll promises of AAP to provide free WiFi across the national capital.

Vice-chairman of Dialogue and Development Commission (DDC) of Delhi, Ashish Khetan, however, did not reveal the usage limit. But he said that it would be consistent with the average daily usage of an individual as defined by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The nodal agency in implementing the project will be the IT department and the tenders will be floated soon, said Khetan.
He also said that the government has also decided to lay down a common fibre-optic network across the city in order to make it possible for Delhiites to access the web in “gigabit speed.”

According to him, 1000 WiFi enabled hotspot zones in around 521 pre-identified locations in the trans-Yamuna region will cater to around 1,20,000 people at any given moment.

“The Delhi government has prepared the wi-fi project, which is set to be the largest such project in the world.  These 571 pre-identified locations will have 1,000 hotspot zones. Each hotspot zone will have three access points and will cater to around 120 people at a time,” Khetan said. If needed, 3000 more access points will be added, he said.

“The tender will have details of free data usage limit. But at this point, I can say that the benchmark would be average data usage by an individual per day as defined by TRAI,” Khetan said.

Khetan said that for the optic-fibre project, the Public Works Department is the nodal agency. The optic-fibre project is an essential pre-requisite for a smart city, he added. The ‘fibre to home’ project will let people access internet in gigabit, he said.

Such high-speed internet was imperative towards bringing “definitive changes” in the areas of education, health, power, water, public transport and security, Khetan said.“Fibre optic network in the whole of Delhi up to your home. This is a big decision by delhi government. Congrats Delhi,” Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted.