JDA hotspots no longer hot, net use drops 55%
SETBACK Decline due to competition with private firm: Officials
JAIPUR: There is 55% drop in the use of public Wifi hotspots in Jaipur, most likely because of cheap and affordable data plans by private telecom companies, said Jai pur Development Authority (JDA) officials.
There was an overwhelming response to the Wifi facility when it was launched in 2016, but the usage dipped after a private telecom company launched free internet plan a little over a year ago, the officials added.
The JDA, under its ‘smart solutions’ for the city, installed free Wifi hotspots across 422 locations. These Wifi access point (WAP) were installed across multiple locations such as tourist places, parks, government hospitals, metro stations and universities in three phases.
Presently, the Wifi access points are available at several places. For example, on the Rajasthan University campus 62 such access points have been installed and 3 lakh sessions have been carried out since the installations. Several other important locations include Nehru Children’s park, SMS Stadium and Ram Niwas Bagh.
The Wifi can be accessed by enabling the Wifi option, there- after choosing ‘Pinkcity Wi-fi’ as the connection option. The Wifi is free for an hour, thereafter cheap plans such as ₹10 can be paid for accessing three hours of Wi-fi usage.
Since the installation of the WAP in March 2016, nearly 42,07,733 Wi-fi sessions have been carried out by the users accessing a total of 4000 GB data. The peak hours of the data usage is 4 pm to 7pm, said officials. Where the average usage sessions across the city initially was 10,000 per day, presently the usage sessions per day are nearly 4500, said officials.
CP Gupta, executive engineer at the JDA said that even as the number of users decreased, the Wi-fi hotspots are still proving to be beneficial each day for thousands of people throughout the city.
“The programme is beneficial for not only the people of the city but also the tourists who keep increasing every year. Still it is being used widely and has been proved to be beneficial for the people,” said Gupta.