Free wi-fi on Ridge from today

Tribune News Service

Shimla, May 30

Residents and tourists strolling the historic Ridge ground during the summer festival would get free wi-fi facility for the next one week, courtesy Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC). The pilot project would be launched tomorrow evening by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and any person can use the facility from Scandal Point to Church till June 7.

Aura Ventures Pvt Ltd will assist the SMC in rolling out the service while the bandwidth and the technology platform will be provided by Airtel and Airtight Pvt Ltd, respectively.

To avail the free wi-fi service, a passkey would be sent on a user’s registered mobile number, which would enable him to log into the wi-fi homepage in compliance with all security norms, said SMC’s Deputy Mayor Tikender Singh Panwar.

He said the facility could be used for two hours every day till June 7 and the speed would be 1mbps with data storage of 7 GB, which implied that a single user can download four Hindi movies. After connecting to the wi-fi, the users would land on the SMC’s Facebook page where they could give their feedback about the facility, Tikender said. He said the SMC planned to build 25-30 hotspots in future which would cater as the citizens’ service centres for locals from where they could go to a portal to get birth and death certificates and other works.

The free wi-fi service will cover areas adjoining the Ridge, Scandal Point and parts of the central Mall Road. Seven routers (access points) have been installed which will be giving wi-fi service at various locations such as Padam Dev Complex, State Library, HPMC counter, Ashiana Hotel, Gaiety theatre, SMC’s old building and Scandal Point. 

The range of each router would cover an approximate area of 150-m radius where people would be able to avail the free service. 

“The facility works even during the disaster. As the network is wireless and intrusion prevention system enabled, nobody would be able to break it. This step has been taken to ensure that the service is not misused and everything would be under radar,” said Vibhas Sharma, CEO, Aura Ventures.

The Shimla Municipal Corporation is among one of the pioneer cities in India to provide a free wi-fi facility on a pilot basis to people.