Facebook Express Wi-Fi Ready for Commercial Deployment in India?

Facebook, which has been testing a for-fee Wi-Fi hotspot program in India, is said to be in talks with commercial partners to roll out the service on a wider level.

The Express Wi-Fi program apparently has completed an initial test run offering 125 rural public Wi-Fi hotspots.

That test had Facebook assisting Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., which acted as the retail services provider, and originally used an anchor tenant concept to improve the business model.

Such approaches typically seek out a hospital, school or other anchor customer whose site then becomes a hub for reaching deeper into a village or community. In some deployments, other operators have used the anchor tenant sites as trunking or relay stations for mesh style traffic backhaul.

BNSL was a logical partner, since the firm had committed to launching as many as 40,000 Wi-Fi hotspots across India. The carrier had announced its plan to create several thousand Wi-Fi hotspots initially.