Facebook planning to commercially launch rural WiFi in India

Internet has become an indispensable part of our lives. Whether its food, movies, work or staying connected to our near and dear ones, internet helps us in almost each and every part of our lives. Seeing the Internet revolutionise the urban areas while the rural side of countries remain completely oblivious about the tech and its advantage promoted Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook to come up with a Express Wi-Fi program.

The Express Wi-Fi is an effort to make affordable broadband in rural areas, a reality. In order to make this possible, Facebook has partnered with a number of Internet service providers and small entrepreneurs.

After having successfully completed a pilot roll out of 125 rural public Wi-Fi hotspots in a tie-up with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., the Social networking giant has now decided to expand its Wi-Fi program into a commercial launch in India. The company is currently getting in touch with a number of internet service providers (ISPs) in the country for the same.

“We are testing Express Wi-Fi program in India currently that allows customers to purchase fast, reliable and affordable data packages from their local ISP (internet service providers) to access the Internet via local hotspots,” said a spokesperson from Facebook India in a statement.

While the social networking giant did reveal that it is currently getting in touch with a number of ISPs, it declined to give out any particular names. Facebook has left the duty of coming up with a scalable business model to its partners.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has designed an innovative software especially for the rural markets which will provide a helping hand to ISPs and entrepreneurs to run a business right from within their localities. This way, Facebook aims to bridge the highly visible coverage gaps in India’s rural cellular data networks.

Here’s hoping Facebook achieves its Express Wi-Fi program mission of making internet services available in remotest of the remotest Indian rural areas very, very soon.