Free public Wi-Fi? Keep searching

Announced amid much fanfare, it is nowhere in sight at major bus and Metro stations

Every now and then, government agencies boast about how they are going you give you free Wi-Fi at busy public hotspots.
Metrolife went looking, and found free Wi-Fi at only one of three prominent public places: the KSR City Railway Station. The other two locations showed no sign of the promised service.

MG Road
Since 2014, this upscale location popular with tourists has been promised free Wi-Fi. Our reporter walked around the area, and on the lovely boulevard, trying to find connectivity. First thing to remember is that it’s called ‘Ion Namma Wi-Fi,’ so most people may not even connect the dots. We found the signal in a few places and occasionally connected to it, but couldn’t go beyond it to browse.
Metrolife tried over three days to get through to D-VoiS Communications ION Wireless, the network providers for a statement, but haven’t heard from them yet.
The network providers customer service said connection was available on MG Road but couldn’t tell how to access it.

City Railway Station
Google provides connectivity here, and we are happy to report it works. It is best accessed at the exit on all platform. Posters at prominent locations in the station make people aware of the free service. Shivani, a student new to the city, says she has heard about free Wi-Fi but never used it. A railway employee also says he hasn’t tried it.

Bus Stations
The BMTC is big on free Wi-Fi, at least for the record. We visited the Kempegowda (Majestic) and Shanthinagar bus stations but found no connectivity. In February, the BMTC said it would introduce free Wi-Fi on 1,540 of its buses. We will check them out soon. It also promised the service at major bus stations. At Shantinagar, the bus station that connects Bengaluru to many destinations in Tamil Nadu, passengers were unaware of the availability of free Wi-Fi. And they had good reason. Our reporters went looking around the station, but couldn’t detect Wi-Fi signals anywhere either.

Word of caution
Recently, R S Sharma, chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, said the government should allow ‘resale of data’ by Internet service providers to encourage the proliferation of public Wi-Fi hotspots.
In the absence of a data protection law, you are better off using the SIM on your phone---rather than free public Wi-Fi---to connect to the Internet. If the government tweaks data resale regulations, your public browsing information will be up for sale.