‘Kolkata: Kolkata will soon become the country’s first fully Wi-Fi enabled metro city, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee tweeted on Tuesday.
“Delighted to announce that #Kolkata will become India’s first fully Wi-Fi enabled metro city in the next 2-3 months. Park St from Feb 5,” a post on Banerjee’s twitter handle read.
Her next tweet suggested that billionaire Mukesh Ambani’sReliance Jio Infocomm will implement this project.
“Thank u Reliance Jio. This will transform Kolkata into a networked society – Smart, Simple & Secure. Kolkata leads the way in digital world,” she said.
It was also not clear if the Wi-Fi network in Kolkata will be on 4G network.
In 2013, Reliance Jio had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) for laying out 4G network in the city.
As per that agreement the company was supposed to lay 750 kilometres of optical cable fibre within KMC’s jurisdiction. The cost of the project was estimated at Rs 4,000 crore at that time.
Reliance Jio had acquired the spectrum for 4G services in 2010 but the launch of services since then has been delayed.