Adequate support from public Wireless Fidelity hotspots is necessary for the digital revolution in India to meet global benchmarks. Elaborate (200 Words)
Refer - Business Line
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 3 years
KEY POINTS
· India has emerged as one of the most data-hungry countries in the world. We are increasingly consuming bandwidth-heavy applications and services, presently at around 14 GB per user per month.
· Rural users are consuming even more video content owing to their semi-literate background, and this is slated to grow further.
· As per the Ericsson Mobility Report 2021, 5G will further shoot data consumption to almost 40 GB per user per month by 2026.
· Mobile broadband has several inherent radio engineering characteristics, due to which, nowhere in the world can it ever guarantee minimum speeds.
· Since an estimated 80 per cent of high capacity data usage is done while indoors and not when mobile, public Wi-Fi will be apt and vital to deliver high-speed, affordable and quality internet services to the masses.
· Unfortunately, public Wi-Fi hotspots in India are at ‘ground-zero’ levels less than 0.5 per cent of the global average of around 362 million (Statista). The historic PM WANI initiative offers a robust solution to this .
· The NDCP target of 10 million public Wi-Fi hotspots by 2022 is also likely to generate demand and scope for local manufacturing of the equipment in India, boosting Aatmanirbharta.
