How to connect Wi-Fi hotspots in India

India is world’s second-largest telecommunications market. The Government Policies are encouraging competition thereby fueling predatory pricing and industry consolidation.

Government’s easy market access to telecom equipment and a proactive regulatory framework has  ensured availability of telecom services to consumer at affordable prices.

Driven by strong adoption of data consumption on handheld devices, the total mobile services market  revenue in India is expected to touch US$ 37 billion in 2017, registering a Compound Annual Growth Rate  (CAGR) of 5.2 per cent between 2014 and 2017, according to research firm IDC.

Users connecting to Wi-Fi at an airport, coffee shop, library or a hotel—have all used an open Wi-Fi network.  Strong need is to be connected in this digital world - be it at their homes, in offices, in colleges, at railway stations,  bus stops, cafes or airports, millions worldwide latch on daily to paid and free Wi-Fi hotspots to surf the Net on  their mobile devices. Globally it is estimated that public Wi-Fi hotspots would grow to 340 million by 2017 amounting to 1 hotspot for every  20 people, as against the current ratio of 1 hotspot for every 150 people (Source iPass and Maravedis Rethink).

Most of the public Wi-Fi hotspots in India are venue-based deployments such as at airports and railway stations  (0.5%), hotels (41%) and shopping malls, restaurants, coffee shops, and retail outlets (58%). Currently 31,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots are installed in India and are poised to grow beyond 202,000 by 2018  Huge gap exists between India and global average as additional 800,000 hotspots are need to be deployed to  match the current global average of one public Wi-Fi hotspot per 150 people.

The major Key growth factors for connectivity are setting up of Wi-Fi hotspots, A rapidly growing Smartphone user base with Higher speed ,A significant portion of the population does not have an Internet connection, Global Internet tech companies such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. opt for Wi-Fi and public hotspots as a  preferred route to deploy broadband networks ,Govt. of India’s goal to have 7.5 lakh wi-fi public hotspots by 2018-end.