Telecom operators and technology companies have renewed their long-running battle over the future of the broadband architecture, with telecom service providers arguing that public Wi-Fi has limited commercial relevance in a mobile-first market, while the Broadband India Forum (BIF) has urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to recognise it as a critical complementary layer of national broadband infrastructure.
In submissions to Trai’s consultation paper on the proliferation of public Wi-Fi networks, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi) said weak consumer demand, poor monetisation prospects and market realities – not licensing barriers or regulatory constraints – have limited the success of the PM-WANI framework. BIF, whose members include technology and digital firms such as Amazon, Google and Meta, argued that India risks becoming overly dependent on mobile broadband and should adopt a broader connectivity strategy that includes public Wi-Fi alongside mobile, fibre and satellite networks.
The submissions come as Trai reviews the future of PM-WANI, launched in 2020 to create a nationwide public Wi-Fi network through a light-touch regulatory framework. In its consultation paper, the regulator flagged concerns around low adoption, limited commercial viability and the overall effectiveness of the model.
The latest exchange revives a familiar fault line in the telecom policy landscape. Telecom operators have consistently maintained that affordable mobile broadband and expanding 4G and 5G coverage already address connectivity needs, while BIF has long advocated greater use of alternative broadband access technologies and unlicensed spectrum to expand connectivity and improve network efficiency.
Airtel said India remains an overwhelmingly mobile-first market where consumers already have access to affordable, always-on connectivity through mobile broadband. Given the country’s low mobile data tariffs, high smartphone penetration and ongoing 4G and 5G rollouts, the sustainable revenue opportunity for public Wi-Fi remains limited outside specific niche use cases, it said.
Reliance Jio identified monetisation as the sector’s biggest challenge and cited RailTel’s railway Wi-Fi initiative as an example of a service that achieved substantial usage but struggled to generate sustainable revenues. The company also questioned the continued relevance of the PM-WANI architecture, arguing that the model was conceived on assumptions similar to the public call office ecosystem that became redundant following the widespread adoption of mobile telephony.
BIF, however, called for public Wi-Fi to be formally anchored within the broadband architecture. The industry body proposed deeper integration of PM-WANI with BharatNet, state fibre networks, Smart City infrastructure and other public digital assets. It also advocated interoperable authentication systems, roaming frameworks and common discovery platforms to make public Wi-Fi as seamless to access as mobile broadband.
“Public Wi-Fi should be viewed as a complementary broadband layer rather than a competing connectivity platform. India’s future digital requirements cannot be served through mobile broadband alone,” said TV Ramachandran, president of BIF.