Broad connectivity

After pursuing several ambitions plans, the Punjab government has announced to come up with yet another one. This time it is about the provision of free wifi connectivity to people at public places including hospitals, educational institutions, public parks, general bus stands, along metrobus route, railway station etc. Named Metro Wi-Fi Network Programme, the initiative will be launched in Lahore, Multan and Rawalpandi in the first phase. Later on the model will be replicated in other cities such and Faisalabad and Rawalpindi.

The stated purpose of the programme is to promote education in the province with the help of modern technology, help people benefit from IT based services provided by the provincial government, monitor unwanted activities and check crime, improve the functioning of the government machinery and so on.

The Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), which is looking after the project, has also started digitalisation of text books. A lot of work has already been done and Compact Disks (CDs) of several textbooks have already been produced. There are proposals also to provide tablets to government school teachers and students.

The government says the purpose of these initiatives is to create an ecosystem where citizens including teachers and students are able to access information without any problem. It believes the citizens’ ability to retrieve content from multiple sources will discourage dependence on one text-book curriculum and promote a culture of research and reasoned-based thinking.

The initiative which is likely to be launched in a couple of months from now has also received criticism from certain quarters. But most of it are perceived fears about the project being financially unviable or too ambitious for cities which have several other urgent issues to handle and beneficial only to people who use android phones or own devices with internet. The perception that the project if launched will not be able to sustain for long is also quite common.

Adeel Ahmed, a Lahore-based expert in IT and telecom technologies, says it is yet to be seen as to how the government makes the initiative sustainable.

One major issue, he says, is that the telecom companies who have made multi-million dollar investments to launch fast internet services such as 4G and LTE fear fall in their revenues as people will switch to free wifi.

Secondly, the investment required for this purpose is huge and the maintenance and running costs aren’t low either. The dependence on uninterrupted power supply also makes things tough.

According to Ahmed, many cities in the developed world, especially those in the US, have rolled back such initiatives in the recent past. The quality of service itself is also an issue as free of all ride is not possible. It will be better if this option is available to targeted beneficiaries so that internet speed remains fast, he comments.

Similarly, Shahid Ali, a publisher in Urdu Bazar is skeptic about the success of digital books programme. He says the publisher mafia has made a fortune by publishing text books and will go to any extent to resist launch of text books in digital format. Once the curriculum is available it can be copied and updated easily. Therefore, he says, there will be limited scope of publishing new text books and publishers’ investments worth billions will be at stake.

Dr Umar Saif, PITB Chairman, who is spearheading several IT projects, says that this initiative is not the first of kind and many cities in the world have launched free wifi services. Recently, the Aam Admi Party (AAP) has announced to launch free wifi service in Delhi. It is how this broad connectivity is used and what information is accessed that decides the success of the initiative.

Saif says the government plans to set up around 200 hotspots in all the cities to be covered under the project. Preference will be given to the underprivileged areas where connectivity is low.

He also says telecom companies may feel the heat in the beginning but they will ultimately be taken on board. It is possible that their customers will be provided with access to government-managed wifi service through unique ID and revenues shared with them.

Saif says the government is considering different options to make the initiative viable. It can lay the setup itself, partner with private sector or go for public-private partnership. Apart from offering service at public places, he says, the government also plans to cell bandwidth to private establishments at subsidized rates. As the government will buy bandwidth in bulk it will be able to sell it at cheaper rates. There is also a proposal to only buy bandwidth and get all other services including infrastructure support, operations and maintenance from private parties, he adds.

No doubt telecom companies fear loss of revenue but there is another dimension as well. Irfan Wahab Khan, Chief Telecom Officer at Telenor Pakistan, sees an opportunity in the move and commends the initiative. He says this initiative will not only bring new users online but also add to the ambition of Digital Pakistan. Irfan says this initiative can prove to be a milestone in developing the internet ecosystem in the country. The broadband technology, he says, is a direct contributor to economic growth as it significantly improves productivity by facilitating the adoption of more efficient practices, speeds up innovation by introducing new applications and leads enterprise successes by giving them easy access to workforce, raw materials and consumers.

Naveed Siraj, Country Manager, Intel Pakistan, terms the approval of free public wifi Punjab a step in the right direction. He says for the last 18 years, Intel Pakistan has highlighted the benefits of pervasively available broadband and its positive impact on national economic growth.

Siraj, who has always stressed the need for affordable broadband services, says this initiative will encourage businesses to bring new services to a larger installed base of connected consumers, thereby improving lives of the common citizens.

Besides, he says, provision of textbooks in digital format is a great step as the educational content available online can be updated more efficiently and on a regular basis. He also hopes that this program is extended to rural and backwards areas which are the victims of digital divide.

The PITB Chairman says that initially the citizens may be provided this facility round the clock but later on a targeted policy will be approached. There will be a policy on which content to be made accessible for free and for how many hours in a day. He says the unique identity of all the users will be recorded and tracked in order to devise long-term plan. For example, he says a student may have access for indefinite period and a casual user for a limited period.

He also dispels the impression that the printers and publishers will suffer. PITB has brought rights from publishers who will get royalty for every book installed in digital format. They will be able to publish their textbooks as only 10,000 students and 16,000 publishers will get tablets with content in digital format in the first phase. These students, he says, will be selected on 100 per cent merit basis.

Saif says digitalisation does not simply mean typing of the content. PITB has bought the rights and has a full content development department which has augmented it with the help of animations, video lectures, audios and demonstrations, he concludes.