Telecom Reforms — Fueling Public Wi-Fi services

It is almost three years ~ 1000 days, since the NDA Government took the historical decision to delicense a large quantum of spectrum for public Wi-Fi services. This article reviews the intricacies, impact and how it has become the base to trigger equitable, affordable access in digitalization in the country

In our digital world of today, Wi-Fi signals keep us online and connected – even while travelling at airports and railway stations or in public places like shops, restaurants, malls, bus stands, we look for available Wi-Fi networks to connect and go online.

Keeping the needs of our digital dreams to bring the entire nation online, the Hon’ble Minister of Communications, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw and the Department of Telecommunications took a visionary decision in 2018 to make a large part of the 5GHz band license exempt from licensing requirements. This has provided providing a big boos for public Wi-Fi hotsposts and enabled the proliferation of Wi-Fi and RLAN (Radio Local Area Networks) services in public as well as at enterprise levels.

Wifi is synonymous with high-speed-wireless broadband services, despite the low cost of mobile data today. This is why, in order to bring larger parts of our country and all strata of society into the digital mainstream – whether urban or rural — on an equal footing, the PM WANI program has been launched. PM WANI aims at bringing affordable broadband services to the common man in the country.

Public Wi-Fi hotspots have played a major role in helping students connect to online classes, infotainment and even working from home (logging in from cafes or malls). Its reach cuts across boundaries of class and economic levels.

Initially the 2.4 GHz band was identified – with a limited spread of 83.5 MHz in the spectrum band — for offering public Wi-Fi services. As this band became saturated and posed technical limitations for the new generation of services, many countries started delicensing large segments in the 5GHz band, which drove deployment of Public-Wi-Fi hotspots over the last few decades.

Despite its popularity, India remained stuck in the 2007 policy, which allowed only a quantum of 50 MHz for outdoor and Public WiFi use. This situation continued till 2018 when the NDA Government decided to in the interest of our digital nation to align this in line with other countries that had already made larger quantities of the band license exempt in the last two decades. The government noticed the key importance of the 5GHz band, to boost public internet, enterprise services and network connectivity.

Post the Hon’ble Supreme Court judgement on spectrum in 2012, there had been a lull in spectrum reforms except for some periodic auctions. The big bang reforms as part of the National Digital Communication Policy changed this status quo and an overhaul of the National Frequency Allocation Plan was made in 2018. There were some radical and transformatory decisions taken. One of theme being to dedicate an additional 550 MHz band for outdoor use to the nation to help set up public Wi-Fi and RLAN services.

Historically no country has taken such a decision to open up such large quantities in one go in 5GHz band for the benefit of public to maximize socio economic benefits.

The Department of Telecommunications, conducted elaborate inter-ministerial consultations to make this happen and to avoid any overlapping and interference — and it obtained technical and policy inputs for promoting this public good to take us closer to becoming an inclusive digital nation.

This single decision to exempt licensing for Wi-Fi spectrum has made a significant impact on enhancing the reach of Internet in public places. IT has complemented the efforts of telecom service providers for network connectivity.

It is well known that wide use of Wi-Fi spectrum for internet use, reduces the congestion and strain on valuable mobile spectrum – freeing up the network for more important voice and data calls. This is called mobile data offload (moving the Internet access to Wifi from mobile networks) thus enabling mobile customers higher voice quality and data services.

There is also an innovative use of Wi-Fi spectrum by the service providers through ‘Licensed Assisted Access’, wherein TSPs can use this spectrum to augment and complement high throughput services for mobile users. The Wi-Fi technology uses listen before talk (LBT) methodology enabling repeat use of carriers by multiple users in the same neighborhood with minimum interference. The operations include Dynamic Frequency Selection and Trans Power Control as methods to minimize interference.

What makes this license exempt so important for Digital India?

An important and scarce resource like spectrum, which is crucial for mobile and wireless, has been opened and allows anyone or any enterprise to deploy and use it without any regulatory or policy interference and free of cost. This is important for our country to enable cheaper services.

Since it permits low power operations, multiple operators can deploy services anywhere and everywhere. The spectrum is free to operate with the condition of non-interference and non-protection, so that it takes care of other radio services and users in the band through a collaborative oversight by the stakeholders themselves.

Today, lakhs of public Wi-Fi hotspots have been deployed. Market reports also quote that apart from public Wi-Fi, lakhs of RLAN links have also been deployed by service providers for internal network connectivity and enterprise digitalization in the last three years — contributing to enhanced digitalization in line with the objectives of National Broadband Mission and Digital India.

BY KISHORE BABU YGSC

Deputy Director General (DDG), Standardization-R&D-Innovation, Department of Telecommunications

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