Facebook brings Express WiFi to India, partners with Airtel for 700 hotspots

Facebook brings Express WiFi to India, partners with Airtel for 700 hotspots

Remember the cable guy? Carrying a roll of optical fibre cables on his shoulder that brought satellite TV to your homes before set top box relegated(चला) him to history. He is coming back but only in the form of entrepreneurs who will set up WiFi hotspots courtesy Facebook to provide internet in public places ending India’s poor connectivity problem. Called Express WiFi, the new programme, which is a follow up of the banned Free Basics platform, ties up with entrepreneurs to help them set up public WiFi hotspots and helping them provide internet to a lot of citizens in poor or no connectivity areas – the “intent” behind Free Basics platform.

“We were working with ISP and operator partners to test Express WiFi with public WiFi deployments in multiple pilot sites,” Munish Seth, head of connectivity solutions at Facebook’s Asia Pacific region, told HT, adding that now customers will be able to purchase fast, reliable and affordable data packs in four states (Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Meghalaya) across 700 hotspots and 500 retailers. Express WiFi has been deployed in partnership with ISPs AirJaldi in Uttarakhand, LMES in Rajasthan, Tikona in Gujarat, and soon with Shaildhar in Meghalaya. He also said that Facebook was working with Airtel to bring 20,000 more hotspots throughout the country. Express WiFi is currently live in Indonesia, Tanzania, Kenya and Nigeria.

Explaining how Express WiFi works, Seth said that Facebook is providing the software stack for the entrepreneurs, data analytics and in some cases some funds to help start operations. However, he said that the entrepreneur can choose any internet service provider (ISP) for bringing the WiFi to the hotspot.

“We will recommend ISPs based on our tests and usually the speed of the Wi-Fi has to be somewhat around 10mbps,” Seth said, adding, that if someone wants to use the WiFi, the person will buy a data card just like prepaid vouchers and use it on their devices.

“Anyone can access the Express WiFi network by signing up with an Express WiFi retailer and purchasing a daily, weekly or monthly data pack at a rate set by our partners. They will then be able to connect to the Express WiFi hotspot, register/create an account, login and start browsing or use any app on the entire internet,” Seth explained.

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