"If there can be 8 million WiFi hotspots? Why has that not happened?" TRAI Chairman RS Sharma asked at the Stakeholder Consultative Workshop on Public Wi-Fi, organized by IIIT Bangalore last week. "If a user is paying Rs 0.20 per mb, and if it is possible to charge them only Rs 0.03 or 0.04, why shouldn't you do that? It's not that there aren't users. What is coming in the way, is the cost", he said, before offering a solution: "We need to have a completely unbundled model, which will reduce the cost. Why are Uber etc growing? You have to ensure that the cost of maintaining the WiFi is minimal, and take away all the complexity of billing, documentation, and create an architecture where things can be on the cloud. It's not the regulators job to prescribe the architecture, but at some points in time, you should facilitate, because these are very very important." As an example, Sharma pointed towards the role of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), in helping facilitate the creation of micro ATM's, where users can withdraw money at small shops. "It will happen if you make it affordable, ubiquitous and very very cost effective." Edited excerpts from his address On an interoperable National WiFi Grid "My vision is that I should be able to access any public wifi, paid or free, by a single authentication at one point, across hotspots, till I reset it," Sharma said. "Currently I have to tell the WiFi network who I am…
