Leading wireless mobility solution provider O-Zone Networks Tuesday said it plans to open another 40,000 wireless internet zones in the country in the next two-and-a-half years.
The company’s chief financial officer, Dharmendra Amin, said these Wi-Fi ‘Hotspots’ in malls, coffee shops and hotels, among other places, will need an investment of $50 million.
Currently the company has 1,800 active Wi-Fi zones, while another 4,300 are in various stages of development.
The company opened its 100th internet Wi-Fi ‘Hotspot’ in the national capital region (NCR) Tuesday. It plans to add another 1,800 zones in the NCR by 2013.
“If we look at the trends abroad, people generally prefer to come to these type of zones, where they get high and uninterrupted speeds of internet. In India too, the same trend will come in as more and more people start to use smart phones which are Wi-Fi enabled,” Amin said.
Amin said that value added services like music, movies and entertainment content and localised advertisements would generate revenue for the company.
“Value-added services are the key. We have associations with music company T-Series and Spice Digital for contents on entertainment, music and films,” he said.
The wireless Internet mobility solutions industry, with players like O-Zone, Tata Communications, AirLink and other content and equipment manufacturers, is estimated to touch $1 billion turnover by 2013.
Amin added that the future expansion would be focused on places like airports, railway stations and commercial hubs.
The company currently holds 65 percent of the market share of wireless mobility solutions.
