Policy to enable proliferation of public wifi hotspots on anvil: DoT official

A policy to enable proliferation of public wifi hotspots in the country is on anvil, a senior Telecom Department official said on Tuesday. Department of Telecom Member (Technology) K Ramchand said all technologies including satellite communication will be leveraged for providing broadband to all citizens.

"In the near future, we are going to come out with a policy which will enable proliferation of public wifi hotspots...again the demand for bandwidth for providing these public wifi hotspots will also be there, and we will try to use all the technologies including satellite technologies, for providing broadband to all citizens of this country," Ramchand said while addressing a virtual event 'India SatCom 2020' organised by the Broadband India Forum (BIF).

Satellite communication not only provides direct links through VSAT, but also serves as a backhaul to terrestrial communications, he pointed out.


"With LEOs (Low Earth Orbit) and inflight communications coming in, the scope of providing services is unlimited. We hope this technology will supplement the other technologies that are available for providing communications to citizens," he said.

He pointed out that the next-generation 5G technology is around the corner.

"As far as new technologies are concerned, 5G is already knocking at the doors. Probably in the next calendar year, we will be seeing the launch of 5G probably by some of the operators," he said.

The growing demand for services and advent of new technologies will require co-operation and close co-ordination among various departments to ensure optimum use of spectrum as well as technologies, he said.