iSPIRT works to transform India into a hub for new generation software products, by addressing crucial government policy, creating market catalysts and grow the maturity of product entrepreneurs. Welcome to the Official Insights!
Many of you asked when the volunteer programme would be available to apply, and here we are again. We do have some changes, though, so please pay attention.
This application process will be available only for the next couple of months and close by December 20th, 2024. It’s on a rolling basis, so apply immediately.
Many of you are already familiar with iSPIRT and its activities; this is your chance to join this volunteer movement. So take some time to review the programmes listed and watch the videos, not just the current ones but also the previous ones, to better understand the journey. Also, please read the Playground Coda and the Volunteer Handbook.
Are there tools we can help build to solve privacy issues, or what kind of packets will help get the internet to remote parts of India? Do you have a better solution to some pressing matters discussed in the videos? Then, you need to apply. Some legacy options and some new options are also available.
Is there some project that strikes your fancy, some part that calls out to you, and you know you can do it? To apply, click this link and follow the process.
I am reminding you again that the deadline is December 20th, 2024.
A journey with iSPIRT is also about the journey with yourself.
The Pradhan Mantri Wifi Access Network Interface (PM WANI) was launched in December 2020. It received a great initial reception, but the enthusiasm died over time. Several reasons have been cited, including a lack of a vibrant ecosystem, lack of profitability, limited business models, etc. In addition, a belief also crept up over time that India did not need PM-WANI as existing telcos would step in and provide universal connectivity in the country. At the same time, several stand-alone solutions have been provided from various quarters to jumpstart the ecosystem.
iSPIRT has taken a long hard look at PM-WANI. It has identified the causes for the multiple issues plaguing the system and attempted to solve the problem holistically. This Open House Session presents our analysis of the issues in PM-WANI and a path forward. It argues for an integrative approach, considering all stakeholders’ concerns. We believe that PM-WANI can fulfil its mission of providing universal connectivity to a large unconnected part of our population.
P.S: Prof. Nilesh Gupta and Prof. Himanshu Tyagi are faculty members at the Indian Institute of Management Nagpur and Indian Institute of Science, respectively, and they also represent their views as independent researchers on the topic.
PM-WANI has allowed sachetised access to WiFi connectivity. However, the true vision of WANI standard, where small business owners can participate as network service providers resulting in fast network growth, has not been realised. We propose the next version of the WANI standard where a more open ecosystem can be enabled to facilitate business interactions such as delegated payments and roaming, which in turn can catalyse increased user base, rapid network growth, and business innovations.
The PM-WANI framework is revised periodically, taking into account the new developments, security updates, etc. Version 1.0 was released in 2020 and this was used for the pilot deployments. The updated 2.0 specification was released in 2021 and is the current version in use. You could read more about these versions here. This whitepaper defines iSPIRT’s vision for the PM-WANI Version 3.0 specification
The blog post and proposal are authored by Saurabh Chakrabarti, Nilesh Gupta, Vishal Sevani, Sharad Sharma, and Himanshu Tyagi on behalf of iSPIRT Foundation. Nilesh Gupta and Himanshu Tyagi are faculty members at the Indian Institute of Management Nagpur and Indian Institute of Science, respectively, and they also represent their views as researchers on the topic.
The authors would like to thank Centre For Development Of Telematics (CDoT) for their detailed discussions and conversations about the workings of PM-WANI. Would also like to thank Bhuvnesh Sachdeva, Shubhendu Sharma, and Satyam Darmora for their insightful comments about the WANI ecosystem.
India, a large country with a lot of geographical and economic diversity, faces interesting challenges with last-mile connectivity for internet users. PM-WANI programme provides a powerful technical and policy framework towards the goal of broadband proliferation across the country.
iSPIRT Foundation has been involved with the PM-WANI programme right from its inception. Dr Pramod Varma, Siddharth Shetty and other volunteers, were involved with the technical framework for unbundling the internet access and ensuring interoperability among all participants
As of date, the Centre for Development of Telematics (CDoT) and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has been ably managing the mantle with all aspects related to the PM-WANI framework.
The PM-WANI has a unique, distributed and unbundled architecture. It has the following participants:
PDO – Set up and maintain the access point (AP). Users connect to this AP to access the internet.
PDOA – Provides the technical backend for the PDO for Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA). PDOA provides a facility for the PDO operator to define broadband sachet for their users (e.g. 1GB data for Rs 5). PDOA also stores the users’ usage data as per the government security compliance.
App-Provider – Operates a mobile application for PM-WANI. A user will use this mobile application to discover a PM-WANI-compatible network. The App-Provider maintains the user KYC.
Central-Registry – It maintains the details of every registered PDO, PDOA and App-Provider. It is generally used to validate requests made between the participants.
PM-WANI facilitates the delivery of broadband access to users using PDO-operated WiFi access points (AP). A telecom/internet service provider provides the backhaul internet to this AP.
Instead of needing multiple licences and compliances to commercially distribute internet, in PM-WANI’s case, the PDO requires absolutely no compliance or licence to distribute internet locally!
That does not mean the security is compromised in any way. The user KYC is handled by the App-Provider and the usage logs are maintained by the PDOA
User Flow
PM-WANI as an earning opportunity for small entrepreneurs
This programme offers great monetary opportunities for entrepreneurs. Multiple companies are coming up with varied plans for becoming a PDO / PDOA. Let us discuss some of them
Case 1: Become a PDOA with a C-DoT software stack and onboard PDOs
This is for entrepreneurs to start their own PDOA business and create a network of PDOs (on their own or onboarding other small-business owners)
The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) provides a complete PDOA software stack as Platform as a Service(PaaS). Here, it takes care of all the technical requirements (including software, server and regulatory requirements). This enables entrepreneurs to start their PDOA operations without getting into the technical nitty-gritty. They charge a very low fee of Rs. 15000 for 3 months.
In this business case, we consider that 95% of the voucher collection goes to the PDO and 5% goes to the PDOA
The annual investment for the PDOA is Rs. 60000
Value Proposition for PDO
A PDOA can create an excellent value proposition for a PDO using this model.
We have considered the average voucher cost for a user to be Rs 2, Rs 5, Rs 10 and Rs 15., eg. a user will buy an internet sachet/voucher of Rs. 2 for 1GB data a day.
The below table shows the cost-benefit analysis for Year 1 wherein a PDO charges Rs 2 per voucher. Annually, PDO breaks even with just 20 daily users and achieves 100% return-on-investment (ROI) with just 40 daily users in the first year itself! Year 2 onwards it’s just 13 users to break even and 25 users for 100% ROI.
PDO Year 1
Daily Cost Per User(in Rs)
No of daily users for breakeven
No of daily users for 100% ROI
2
20
40
5
8
16
10
4
8
15
3
6
PDO Year 2 onward
From year 2 onwards, the ROI starts getting even sweeter as the operating cost further reduces to Rs. 9000 for a year
Daily Cost Per User(in Rs)
No of daily users for breakeven
No of daily users for 100% ROI
2
13
25
5
5
10
10
3
5
15
2
4
Value Proposition for PDOA
The below graph shows the number of PDOs needed to be deployed for a PDOA to break even for different voucher costs and daily users
Case 2 – Become a PDO with other private players
There are quite a few companies that allow people to deploy their own PDO directly. They provide a PDO infrastructure (AP and allied software) for Rs 12000 a year
Costs
Here is the cost breakdown for a PDO:
Annual Internet pricing – 50 Mbps connection
Rs.600/month = Rs 7200/-
Annual Electricity & Router Maintenance
Rs.150/month = Rs 1800/-
AP which is PM-WANI compliant
Rs. 12000/-
Total Investment for year 1 for a PDO
Rs. 21000/-
Value Proposition for PDO
Daily Cost Per User(in Rs)
No of daily users for breakeven
No of daily users for 100% ROI
2
29
58
5
12
24
10
6
12
15
4
8
PM-WANI Challenges
Interoperability
One of the major challenges that PM-WANI is facing right now is protocol compliance. Because of this, some of the PM-WANI Apps do not work interoperably with the PDO.
Example: A PM-WANI app developed by company A is not compatible with a PDO of company B. A’s app only works with A’s PDO
Data Sharing
The protocol, as of now, does not have a standard way to share usage data between the participants. Hence, the app provider does not get any incentive when a user buys a PDO/PDOA coupon due to this lack of data sharing. Also, for implementing roaming between PDOs, it is essential that there is some data-sharing standard available between multiple PDOAs.
Grievance Redressal
This is another area that is not regulated at the moment
What iSPIRT is up to
We are working on multiple fronts to solve the PM-WANI challenges.
For the interoperability issue, we are developing a certification mechanism for PM-WANI that cthe PDOA or App-Providers can easily usewith minimal complexity.
We are developing a reference implementation for PM-WANI. The community can further build on it and come up with more interesting business models for PM-WANI.
We are also working on proposals for improving the protocol to address the challenges mentioned in the previous section.
Please feel free to write to Saurabh Chakrabarti at [email protected] for any questions.
