Trai rejects operators' call to disband India’s public WiFi project, caps tariffs

Operators cannot charge public data offices (PDOs) more than twice the tariff applicable to retail subscribers for fiber broadband services with speeds up to 200 Mbps, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said in its new tariff order.

Under the Prime Minister Wi-Fi Access Network Interface (PM-Wani) project, PDOs are local and small shops that buy internet bandwidth from operators to resell as public WiFi hotspots and internet sachets of ₹5-10 per day to consumers in rural and other areas. 

“This pricing framework has been designed to appropriately balance the interests of all stakeholders by ensuring affordability for small-scale Public Data Offices (PDOs) while also providing economic incentives to service providers," Trai said in its Telecommunication Tariff (Seventy First Amendment) Order, 2025.

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The PM-Wani scheme, which started in 2020, has been struggling to take off because of the high pricing charged by telecom operators and internet service providers. The government targeted 10 million public WiFi hotspots across the country by 2022, and 50 million by 2030. However, according to government data, about 333,215 hotspots have been deployed so far, with nearly half of those in Delhi.

The operators were charging up to ₹8 lakh per annum from PDOs for providing bandwidth using expensive internet leased lines. The Broadband India Forum, which represents Big Tech companies, blamed the dearth of public WiFi hotspots in India on ‘predatory pricing’ by the carriers. Later, the government scrapped the commercial agreement norm under which the carriers were providing connectivity to PDOs via leased lines.

Trai rejects arguments 

According to Trai, the new tariff framework takes into account the prevailing market conditions, current levels of adoption of PM-WANI services, as well as potential future growth. “By aligning with these considerations, the framework aims to facilitate the orderly, sustainable, and inclusive growth of the public Wi-Fi ecosystem under the PM-WANI initiative." 

During the consultations on the tariff order, the telecom operators had pushed back against capping the bandwidth tariffs and wanted Trai to leave them to market forces, calling PDOs their competition. 

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“They are buying the service (bandwidth) for reselling. Why should any operator be forced to provide its network services to its competitors at the arbitrarily regulated prices for building their network," Ravi Gandhi, president and chief regulatory officer of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, had told Trai during a discussion in April. Besides, telecom operators said the concept of public WiFi in general is no more relevant in the country, given the spread of affordable 4G and 5G services and wanted the government to disband the project.

Trai countered that the operators face no competition from PDOs. “It is pertinent to mention that, as per the PM-WANI Central Registry, there are approximately 3 lakh registered PDOs, which constitute only a minimal percentage (0.7%) of the total FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) connections (4 crore approx). Given this relatively low number, the impact of PDOs on overall broadband market appears insignificant," Trai said in the order.

Trai also highlighted that a large number of PDOs are small, residential setups located in low-income neighborhoods, providing affordable and accessible broadband internet to the masses, especially the subscribers at the bottom of the pyramid. 

“These Public Data Offices generally have a limited data consumption under PM-WANI scheme as compared with regular retail connection, i.e. the data consumption under PM-WANI scheme is generally less than the data consumed for personal use out of this connection," Trai said. High broadband connectivity costs can act as a significant entry barrier for such small entities and may adversely impact the proliferation of the PM-WANI scheme.

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In its draft order, Trai had not specified the 200 Mbps limit—the two-times tariff cap applied generally for all the plans, regardless of speed. In the new order, it said the current usage by most PDOs remains within the 100 Mbps range, and to support their growth and the overall expansion of the PM-WANI service, provisioning of broadband FTTH plans with bandwidths of up to 200 Mbps would offer sufficient flexibility to meet future demand.

Trai has not capped the tariff for broadband connectivity to PDOs for bandwidth capacity exceeding 200 Mbps.