Multi system operator Ortel Communications, which had started public WiFi hotspots in January, said that it has 30,000 people accessing internet from these, senior management revealed in a call with analysts. "So, definitely it will be a good tool for us in both ways, one on the marketing front where people see Ortel on their screens and we also are in a portion to target those audiences to be converted into a wireline customer," Jiji John, vice president of broadband business, said. Ortel's existing wireline customers can use their accounts at hot spots without paying any additional charge. " The home package whatever they have subscribed to, will be debited from that," John explained. Currently, the company has 19 towns where public wifi hot spots are installed. Ortel primarily operates in eastern states and has bigger presence in Buhbaneshwar, Odisha For context, Google's railway public WiFi has two million users and in June it said that it had crossed 100,000 in a single day once in Bhubaneshwar. Bibhu Prasad Rath, CEO of Ortel, said that the company is expanding to other towns and that they are following a similar strategy used by US-based Comcast. Rath added that the market in India is divided into customers who want reliability of connection and speed. "When it comes to mobility, we are not the guys actually so it goes it the Telcos," he said. "Now, we wanted to build in a little bit of mobility into life for two - three reasons: one is, there…
