"The Indian Wi-Fi market is projected to grow 7 times faster than the global market"

Natraj Akella is the business head and Vice President of Wi-Fi services at Tata Teleservices. He works on business and operating models around convergence and aggregation of mobile data and Wi-Fi services. In the past, he has successfully lead several strategic initiatives and industry firsts including launch of 4G services, carrier Wi-Fi and telco cloud services platform.  In an exclusive interview with Pravin Prashant, Consulting Editor, VARINDIA, Akela talks about Tata Teleservices plan, city wide public Wi-Fi and business model. Excerpts of the interview:

What's total no of Wi-Fi hotspots installed by Tata Teleservices till date and What's your plan? 
We see a huge opportunity and a focus area for Wi-Fi. Today’s over 500 million mobile subscribers are using Internet and it is likely to touch around 1.3 billion actual human users in the next three years and that would be over 90% of our country’s total population at that point. Keeping that in perspective, the situation of Wi-Fi hotspots in India is not equally encouraging as we represent one sixth of the world population whereas our share in Wi-Fi hotspots is less than 1/1,000. As an operator, Tata Teleservices public Wi-Fi access is a crucial step towards digitization.

Over the last couple of years, we have consistently showcased experience and excellence in the Wi-Fi hotspot segment. We service and support one of India’s busiest airports; provide Wi-Fi service covering the inner and outer circles of one of the most significant business and leisure centers in the city - Connaught Place, we have a partnership with the Bombay Stock Exchange to offer free Wi-Fi service and other associations with educational institutions, hospitality chains etc. With the innovation of deploying Wi-Fi in such huge areas, the company aims to enable businesses and customers alike who increasingly need connectivity with higher speeds across multiple devices.

The key that would differentiate winners from the others would be the kind of sustained experience that we can provide for our users. Hence, our aim in the coming year would be to proactively constantly upgrade the end user experience day in and day out on one hand while expanding our footprint in target segments

How will Wi-Fi compliment 3G and 4G services? What's the current size of Wi-Fi hotspots and what's the projection?
We feel the two technologies are complimentary. While 4G emphasizes range and mobility over rate - and costs more, Wi-Fi on the other hand emphasizes speed over short distances. Therefore, having both is a good thing. Earlier it was largely believed that 4G would make Wi-Fi obsolete. However, its importance has only increased due to an explosion of higher-consumption devices and the need to stay connected. 

More importantly, using cellular and Wi-Fi together in a mobile device has now become a customer expectation. Not only should they work together, but they should be enabled to work together seamlessly at the switch of a button. With most of mobile traffic either originating or terminating indoors today, Wi-Fi is considered as a robust access technology for mobile data offload. Given the low internet penetration, affordability of smartphones, high spectrum charges and issues around fiber rollout; Wi-Fi will continue to play a pivotal role in powering the aspirations of millions of natives in the Digital India. 

Globally, Wi-Fi hotspot numbers are set to grow from 1.3 to 5.8 million in the next four years, the Indian Wi-Fi market on the other hand is projected to grow 7 times faster than the global market. This clearly proves the phenomenal growth the sector is set to witness. Setting aside the economic aspect, operators slowly beginning to realise and seize the opportunities that public Wi-Fi as a technology offers them, especially with the aim to improve the customer experience. Most operators consider Wi-Fi hotspots as very important and even crucial in terms of the customer experience and in terms of reducing the load on the mobile broadband networks and providing value-added services. 

Which states are planning for a city wide public Wi-Fi? 
We are seeing an explosive demand for City Wi-Fi. There is a smart city initiative in almost every state with some being faster than others in working with the industry in putting together a business model along with support infrastructure to facilitate fast and efficient rollout.  

With bandwidth prices trading at Rs 10-15 per GB. Do you see operators making money from city wide public Wi-Fi services through free model? 
This is an area we are working upon with the various agencies. We firmly believe that there is a enough and more opportunity for Wi-Fi in a country like India. What is required is a consistent and robust network framework delivering a superlative customer experience.  This is bedrock for any form of monetization. We support multiple charging models for subscriptions. These plans can be bought online. In addition to these, Tata Teleservices customers can use Wi-Fi from their own data package and/or buy packs through our app Tata Docomo Wi-Fi Wizard.  Basis partner and customer feedback, we are evaluating a few over the top monetization models like advertisements, content partnerships, and location-based services. The whole data story in our view is still in a nascent stage in our country. The number of customers and consumption can only go northward. We are always exploring new opportunities and continuously investing in improving our network and services especially in the public Wi-Fi domain. At Tata Teleservices  our belief is that monetization will follow automatically if we are able to give a superlative customer experience and expand our Wi-Fi footprint. This is currently our focus.