Boosting Digital India, Smriti Irani flags off free WiFi services in Valsad under Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana
Valsad, March 21: Levering internet connectivity in every nook and corner of the country, the officials has left no stone unturned to avail this facility. With a view to provide services, Smriti Irani today launched free WiFi services in Udwada village, Valsad district in Gujarat. The village has been adopted by Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Smriti Irani under Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana.
The State owned telecom corporation Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) today said it plans to deploy 1,00,000 wi-fi hotspots across the country by 2018-end. BSNL, in partnership with QuadGen, today launched free wi-fi services at Udwada village, Valsad district in Gujarat.
Speaking on the occasion, Smriti Irani who is also Minister for Textiles said, "With the launch of wi-fi service today in Udwada village, population of 6,000 in the village, as well as its surrounding areas will be benefited. People in Udwada and surrounding areas will be able to use unlimited internet data and Udwada village has become digital village".
The wi-fi network will come up through a combination of models, including revenue share with partners as well as BSNL's own capital expenditure model. , BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava informed that they are planning to deploy as many as 18,000 hotspots.
The hotspots will cover nearly 90 per cent of the village and will service multiple concurrent users at any point of time.
Launching the service, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said the Digital India programme had fuelled the availability of affordable data and voice services in the country.
Sinha said,"The Digital India movement has ensured that the country has the cheapest data and voice services in the world. Today, India uses more data than the US and China, combined."
Furthermore, BSNL was recently awarded Rs 25,000 crore worth projects from the government. BSNL will be laying the optical fiber-based network dedicated for use by Defence worth Rs 13,334 crore and Rs 6,500 crore for the execution of the second phase of BharatNet Project.