KOLKATA: Bhadra, a quaint little town at a three-hour driving distance from the historic city of Bikaner, now has a place in the history books by becoming the first city in India to be completely covered by Wi-Fi. The availability of WiFi in Bhadra, located in Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan, provides a new way for its 40,000-odd residents to access the Internet, check emails and use mobile apps anywhere within the town limits. Wi-Fi is a wireless technology based on radio waves that can be used to provide Internet access within a range. Bhadra is the first of 12 towns in the state that Sistema Shyam TeleServices plans to transform into completely Wi-Fi zones. The others are Navrangdesar, Asalsar, Nakrasar, Dhawa Forest, Baramsar, Hodsar, Partapur, Dundara, Posaliyan, Netra and Nalbari. To transform the entire township into a Wi-Fi hotspot, Sistema Shyam, the Indian unit of Russia’s Sistema JSFC, has put up a multitude of access points with emphasis on public places where footfalls are high, such as bus stands, railway stations and shopping zones, chief executive Dmitry Shukov told ET. It has also developed a local area network solution to extend Wi-Fi connectivity inside homes. The people of Bhadra — most of whom are farmers — have taken to the service, which was launched last week. “The service has led to an all-round increase in trade, right from buying items online through various ecommerce websites to even trading of shares,” said 35-year-old Bhadra resident Sumit Singh. “With gold rates coming down, I’ve benefitted from online buying of gold jewellery at far more competitive rates than being sold by local jewellers.” Shukov said there are as many as 1,000 daily Wi-Fi usage sessions, with data consumption levels exceeding 50 GB a day. “At present, no Indian city has ubiquitous Wi-Fi, but once that happens, the mobile Internet experience could stand transformed as the quality of such ubiquitous Wi-Fi bandwidth would be far superior than limited chunks of mobile spectrum,” said Rajesh Charia, president of the Internet Service Providers Association of India. Sistema Shyam chose to roll out the Wi-Fi initiative in Rajasthan because it is among the company’s top-three revenue driving states, said Shukov. To boost Wi-Fi adoption, the company has diverse tariff plans, starting with a Rs 25 starter pack offering 150 MB over a three-day period and going all the way to a Rs 749 monthly pack, offering 10 GB of data. Alternatives to Wi-Fi such as mobile Internet and broadband services are available in the town from operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, apart from Sistema Shyam itself. ET View: High Five to Managed Wi-Fi Managed Wi-Fi services are a new business opportunity that goes beyond direct revenue flows from the consumer and the Wi-Fi service provider. The Wi-Fi service provider can sell its service for mobile data offload to multiple mobile operators, who can obviate some investment in mobile data networks while still keeping data-hungry consumers happy. It can monetise consumer data, offer location-specific advertising and do many other things. Wi-Fi is no longer just a convenient, wire-clutter-free way of accessing the Internet at home or a restaurant.