Keeping PCOs alive
»In the 1980s telephones were a luxury meant only for the rich. It also took years to get a telephone connection at home. It was in this dismal situation, Sam Pirtoda with the active backing of Rajiv Gandhi, laid the foundation of India's first telecom revolution.
He set up Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) to manufacture electronic telephone exchanges in India. To make telephones more accessible the government enabled small entrepreneurs to set up Public Calling Offices (PCO), which came up on almost every street of the country. It was here, Indians lined up to make local, national and international calls.
But with the rapid spread of mobiles and falling tariffs, PCOs now look like an appendage of a bygone era. There is some talk of reinventing PCOs to keep them relevant. Sometime ago Sam Pitroda started a company to transform PCOs into digital hubs, which offered a bundle of services such as bill payments, money transfer and ticket sales.
These efforts, few and far in between, have failed to reverse what looks like the inevitable closure of PCOs in the country. An initiative in a distant city may offer a few clues on how to keep the PCOs going. New York City authorities have turned 10 payphones in three boroughs into free wi-fi hotspots. You just log in to the City's tourism web site, agree to the terms and conditions and voila, you are all set to surf. Go to any of these payphones and start browsing.
GigaOm has more details ion the project: The payphones have been fitted with military-grade antennas and it costs $2,000 per installation. The plan is to eventually cover all 13,000 payphones in the City. The service is currently advertising free, however, in future the City may use this option to recover cost. Wi-fi is available in a radius of 300 feet around the payphone. The project has an unintended benefit as well: it will reduce the pressure on cellular network in cities and decongest them.
»In the 1980s telephones were a luxury meant only for the rich. It also took years to get a telephone connection at home. It was in this dismal situation, Sam Pirtoda with the active backing of Rajiv Gandhi, laid the foundation of India's first telecom revolution.
He set up Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) to manufacture electronic telephone exchanges in India. To make telephones more accessible the government enabled small entrepreneurs to set up Public Calling Offices (PCO), which came up on almost every street of the country. It was here, Indians lined up to make local, national and international calls.
But with the rapid spread of mobiles and falling tariffs, PCOs now look like an appendage of a bygone era. There is some talk of reinventing PCOs to keep them relevant. Sometime ago Sam Pitroda started a company to transform PCOs into digital hubs, which offered a bundle of services such as bill payments, money transfer and ticket sales.
These efforts, few and far in between, have failed to reverse what looks like the inevitable closure of PCOs in the country. An initiative in a distant city may offer a few clues on how to keep the PCOs going. New York City authorities have turned 10 payphones in three boroughs into free wi-fi hotspots. You just log in to the City's tourism web site, agree to the terms and conditions and voila, you are all set to surf. Go to any of these payphones and start browsing.
GigaOm has more details ion the project: The payphones have been fitted with military-grade antennas and it costs $2,000 per installation. The plan is to eventually cover all 13,000 payphones in the City. The service is currently advertising free, however, in future the City may use this option to recover cost. Wi-fi is available in a radius of 300 feet around the payphone. The project has an unintended benefit as well: it will reduce the pressure on cellular network in cities and decongest them.