Thirty nine of the 100 cities selected under the Smart Cities Mission currently offer free WiFi services under the Smart City projects, minister of state for communications Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday in a written response.
Data consumption in a city ranges from zero to 15 GB per day depending on the location of the WiFi hotspot, population, service quality and service accessibility.
For 33 of the 39 cities, the service providers gave free WiFi services in the obligated places. In six cities – Bareilly, Gandhinagar, Kanpur, Karimnagar, Panaji and Raipur – the service providers gave free WiFi in fewer than the contracted number of places.
In Bareilly, Aruba Networks (owned by Hewlett Packard Enterprise) provided free WiFi in 9 of the 10 obligated spots. In Gandhinagar, Amnex Infotechnologies provided services in 44 of the obligated 49 places. In Kanpur, Reliance Communications is providing services in 59 of the contracted 66, while in Panaji, Reliance Jio is providing services in 95 of the 98. In Karimnagar, D-Atum Vilcom provides services in 21 of the 22 contracted, while in Raipur, Airtel provides services in 19 of the 20 contracted.