High speed internet is likely to be economic for the residents of New Town, soon.The state Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (HIDCO) is working on schemes to set up solar powered Wi-Fi hotspot and a Public Data Office to provide Wi-Fi services at a nominal fee.

The low cost Wi-Fi facility is to be provided by New Town Telecom Infrastructure Development Company (NTTIDCO), which is a joint venture company of HIDCO where the latter has 51 per cent shares. As decided by the state government, a process is going on for amalgamating NTTIDCO with HIDCO.

According to a sources in HIDCO, NTTIDCO presently provides Wi-Fi services in an area of around 10 km of Major Arterial Road of the satellite township. Taking the facility a step ahead, it is now mulling over plans to enhance internet access to all sections of the society and set up six Wi-Fi hotspots in New Town. “Of the six numbers of Wi-Fi hotspots, at least one can be developed as a solar powered Wi-Fi,” said an official of HIDCO.

“A Public Data Office is also being planned to be set up where a local shop in a market will be able to provide WiFi services to the neighborhood areas against a small fee.

Initial talks with C-DoT Kolkata office were also held last week on the solar Wi-Fi hotspot and Public Data Office,” he added.

Apart from this, discussions between NTTIDCO and CDoT are also going on, to find out ways in which the broadband speeds in Bengal Silicon Valley IT Hub could be made high enough to get serious international attention from data center developers, ISP providers, game companies and telecom players.

Setting an example in providing ducts along roadside spaces reserved for laying optical fiber cables (OFC) used cable TV operators, internet service providers (ISP) and others, the NTTIDCO has achieved a milestone.

Its method of laying OFCs on ready-made ducts under road flanks for any ISP or Cable TV companies without digging the ground, has been mentioned as an example in the consultation paper on ‘how to enhance broadband speed and connectivity in the country,’ released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India last Thursday.