The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Thursday submitted a report to the government on open-architecture based WiFi services through interoperability at low prices, which would substantially slash data prices, reported Business Standard.

Submitting the report on “Public Wi-Fi Open Pilot Project” to Communications Minister Manoj Sinha, TRAI Chairman R S Sharma said: “This is an architecture based on interoperability and is a very robust one… like UPI and Aadhar.”
He told Business Standard that this open-architecture would bring down data prices to one-tenth of the current level. The new model of network has been named “WiFi Access Network Interface (WANI)”, a TRAI statement said here. “The products available for consumption should begin from ‘sachet-sized’, that is, low denominations may be Rs 2,” the statement added.
Under the system, authentication of the service provider and service seekers, along with accounting and payment settlement, would be done through cloud services, Sharma said. There would be a central registry to authenticate the service provider and service seekers, he added.