BSNL has big plans for this year as it gears up to take on the private telecom players in the country. BSNL earlier this month announced that it will roll out 4G services in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana this year. The state-run telco also announced the allotment of Rs 4,300 crore to complete installation of 75,000 Wi-Fi hotspots this fiscal. It is now learnt that BSNL has installed public Wi-Fi hotspots in six locations of Hyderabad. BSNL s Wi-Fi vouchers start at price of Rs 10 and go up to Rs 500. The operator claims to offer ‘4G plus’ data speed. Also Read - BSNL Rs 197 prepaid plan introduced, 4 prepaid plans discontinued
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As reported by The Hindu, BSNL has started offering Wi-Fi service in six locations of Hyderabad. These locations include Kamineni Hospitals in LB Nagar, Koti, BSNL Office in Abids, District Treasury Office, Maitrivanam in Ameerpet and Gachibowli. Any user can avail the initial 100MB data per day for free and after which they would need to purchase the vouchers. BSNL prepaid and postpaid customers who use the Wi-Fi connectivity will be charged on their number. Customers of other networks will have to recharge by logging on to the Wi-Fi portal.
The different plans for BSNL s Wi-Fi connectivity starts at Rs 10 for 100MB with one day validity and goes up to Rs 599 for 10GB of data with validity for 30 days. Along with online recharges, BSNL also plans to introduce physical vouchers for its Wi-Fi connectivity which will be made available at different outlets in the city. BSNL plans to extend this service to its broadband users who can login to the Wi-Fi hotspot with their username and password.
The report further states that BSNL will be expanding the Wi-Fi connectivity by installing 925 access points across 121 hotspot zones in Telangana over the next two months. BSNL also plans on activating Mobile Data Offloading facility in the coming weeks which will allow BSNL users to automatically connect to the Wi-Fi hotspots. ALSO READ: BSNL takes on Reliance Jio with Triple Ace plan priced at Rs 333; offers 270GB 3G data for 90 days
As mentioned above, BSNL s Wi-Fi connectivity will be offered in 4G plus speed. It isn t clear if the internet speed would be 4G plus or at par with 4G speeds. Higher than 4G network, 4G plus offers maximum download speed of up to 150Mbps and average speed of around 90Mbps. Normal 4G speed extends till around 60Mbps with typical download speed resting at 24-30Mbps. While announcing their plans for expanding Wi-Fi connectivity, BSNL did say that the Wi-Fi hotspots would have common equipment that would be linked with its mobile network and would be used for providing 4G service as well. BSNL could be hitting two birds with the same stone by using this technique. ALSO READ: BSNL plans to install 75,000 Wi-Fi hotspots ; allots Rs 4,300 crore for FY18
BSNL s latest Wi-Fi connectivity project is similar to what was discovered few days back of purchasing Wi-Fi data for Rs 10 from kirana store owners. C-DoT created a low-cost Public Data Office (PDO) to improve Wi-Fi hotspots and connectivity in smaller towns. Under this service, shopkeepers can sell Wi-Fi at low costs, starting from Rs 10. This package includes Wi-Fi access point details including-KYC, OTP authentication, voucher management mechanism and a billing system. ALSO READ: You can now purchase Wi-Fi data for just Rs 10 from kirana store owners
