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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!Â
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 themÂ
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.
Wi-Fi Access Network Interface (WANI) that was envisaged by TRAI Consultation papers has become a reality as Government approved it as PM WANI, on 9th December 2020, for exponential proliferation of public Wi-Fi networks.
PM WANI will make it possible millions of Wi-Fi hotspots to emerge across the country, giving easy access to internet to common man. New business models will emerge, making it possible to add another layer of Internet providers with access points being provided by corner shops and stores and others.
The Detailed Document about the Scheme can be downloaded and read at (Click to open) Department of Telecom Site.
The simplicity of the scheme is recognised by the very fact that DOT automatically recognised PDOA after application in 7 days.
PM WANI explained in a snapshot
This PolicyHacks Panel discussion with Dr. RS Sharma, Ex-Chairman TRAI, Pramod Varma, iSPIRT Volunteer, gave conceptual Architecture of WANI, Siddharth Shetty, iSPIRT Volunteer, Shubendu Sharma, Founder of Wifi Dabba and Dr. Ajay Data, Founder & CEO of a Class A ISP and other technology companies.
iSPIRT has been a protagonist of the concept of WANI with Pramod Varma, Siddharth Shetty and other volunteers involved in building the concept to unbundle another layer of broadband level Internet access to masses on the go and in far-flung areas.
Dr. RS Sharma explains,”we came to a conclusion that if we can create a technology architecture for some body to market and provide access by unbundling from ISPs like UPI has done, then it will become seamless and easy to implement and Kirana shops can also provide Wi-Fi without hassle”
“And that is how we came up with the concept of PDO like PCO of Telephone booths and PDOA etc”, he added explaining how PDOA will be a layer above PDO.
The main policy issue here was reselling of the bandwidth, which was addressed and then a consultation papers was evolved and a pilot done to test the concept on ground, he mentioned while explaining how TRAI was involved.
“It is a very asset heavy architecture if a Telco alone has to do all that physical investment till the last wire in your house or each hotspot in country” and “all the fiber in BHARATNET and others that we are laying no body knows at the the end, what we have to do and it requires an ‘entrepreneurial model’ to scale to be putting millions of connection” said Pramod Varma.
In Covid year, we have seen real hardship for people who are not privileged to have broadband access and education of children abruptly stop. “We have to make Connectivity a human right”, says Pramod Varma and explains, that is why, how essentials it is to invest into infrastructure and the last mile becomes people property.
“We had the mental model that, if we can create self sustaining interesting parts of it” Said Pramod, explaining how the concept was evolved. Adding further, that a KYC done ones can give a KYC token that can be used to further to authenticate who the person is on access layer in the Model, without doing KYC again and again. “UPI will further provide the payment model, as we have already solved it”, said Pramod.
“You will have multiple providers come together to unbundle this” Said Siddharth Shetty, adding to the conversation.
Shubendu, from Wi-Fi Dabba who had been thinking this as a ‘business model’, deployed the pilot for testing the concept. Explaining his experience, he said, “we wanted to see if we draw a Internet cable from a router in our office to street side shop, how it is used by people, can people pay for it and use it and in a week we had people instead of buying eclairs asking for a Token to use Wi-Fi”.
“In 2016, we took it as a fulltime project, and this was the time when our problem started as ISPs stopped giving us connection, after knowing we were reselling bandwidth” said Shubendu.
He also explained that, “the kind of paperwork you have to maintain and additional costs you have to incur” does not make it viable for small business to apply for an ISP.
“This policy make life simpler for businesses like us” in entirety, added Shubendu.
Dr. Ajay Data, who founded a Class A ISP in Jaipur, was on panel and said, “I am ‘very positive’ about it and this can revolutionise many many things in this Country”.
He explained, how the product “Vedio Meet” they developed to solve local education problem did not work on HD quality for students in last mile and had to be downgraded to SD quality, because of bandwidth in last mile. “we need to have the internet of the ‘streaming quality’ across country, where HD streams can be delivered on any device and if we can achieve this, rest of the applications will work ” said Ajay Data.
He raised apprehensions, on how it will be regulated on ground without harassment of the PDOs by regulatory bodies, giving examples of how even licensed ISPs are harassed and ISPs are charged AGR even in on sale of Computers and routers. Similar legal issue should not be left unaddressed and should be taken care, in languages (including vernacular medium) for PDOs to be not harassed.
“May be a board (Certificate) can be out in each PDO point to ascertain that local police and enforcement does not harass them”, said Ajay Data.
RS Sharma, addressing concerns raised by Ajay Data, Said, “PM himself has tweeted about this” and leadership knows the exact importance of the policy.
He further explained that, “Retail sale of bandwidth has been made passthrough in the AGR Computation”, either the TSPs or ISP pays for the 8% AGR, retailer has nothing to pay, as it has been already paid for.
Dr. Sharma also explained further, that it can save lot of bandwidth, as content can be maintained locally at local access points and last mile user need not traverse through the upstream network for local content, which is a very useful concept for ISPs and TSPs, to decongest the upstream networks.
The PDOs will not have any problems, as the responsibility of who is accessing what by monitoring SSIDs will lie with PDOA (aggregator), not with PDO.
Shri Sharma added that, “what is important is this is implemented well” sharing the issue with Ajay that many a times polices are misused. And we all hope good intentions will prevail and country will be benefited, he had added further.
The panel discussion ended with note of thanks.
Disclaimer: The discussion and ideas expressed here should not be construed as legal advice. The discussion is conducted with Industry practitioners and experts for purpose of benefiting the Industry members in Software product, IT and Telecom sectors.
