Good Morning. #Surat bound..enjoying free WiFi at Ahmedabad Railway Station. #AchcheeDin



— Siddharth Chhaya (@siddtalks) January 3, 2015

Speed Test Result - #Gujarat Govt's Free WiFi service Powered by JIO (Ahmedabad City - http://t.co/jK7Ic5qvoW) | pic.twitter.com/U3C8uWqfTZ



— SANJAY BAFNA (@sanjaybafna) March 1, 2014

On paper patna hs d longest gov. WIFI zone bt guess wht it has never worked. I guess AAP took inspiration from this only #Freebies #FreeWiFi



— nitesh keshri (@niteshkeshri1) February 11, 2015

With an internet population bigger than the US , Wi-Fi is an important offering for Indian netizens and even Arvind Kejriwal realised that and pitched citywide Wi-Fi to Delhi in his recent election campaign, promising to keep it free. On February 8, Varanasi became the latest city to get the so-called free public Wi-Fi but in reality, the “free of cost” facility is hardly usable or practical.While inaugurating BSNL’s free Wi-Fi service at two ghats in Varanasi, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also announced plans to provide a similar facility to visitors at 407 tourist places in 45 cities across the country soon.Even as the connectivity is promised to be available free of cost at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and Shitala Ghats of Varanasi, users would have to start paying beyond the first 30 minutes.Afterwards, a user will have to pay Rs 20, Rs 30, Rs 50 and Rs 70 for a subscription plan of 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 120 minutes and one day, respectively. Thus, for any practical purposes that goes beyond checking emails or responding to a WhatsApp message, one would find usage time running out too soon.The story is more or less the same with wireless networks around the country where claims of “free” Wi-Fi are made. In many of these cities the service is hardly free for any practical use.Let’s look at them one by one.Kolkata has also hopped on this bandwagon by launching the first Wi-Fi service running on 4G networks. The so-called “free” facility is currently available only around the Park Street area. But, this too is unlikely to remain free for a long time.West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has also promised that the free service ('subject to fair usage', according to a company release) will be extended to all 145 municipal wards in the city in the next two months. However, according to reports, Reliance is using this opportunity to test the viability of its 4G services before rolling it out to the rest of the country, and charges will be levied as soon as the whole city is covered."The Wi-Fi speed is quite good for the first few minutes but tends to slow down after the first half hour," said Arkajit Mondal, a school student from Kolkata who tested the service. "I can still use it to send tweets when I run out of my data connection."Another student from the city spoke to Scroll.in and confirmed that Wi-Fi coverage is good, albeit unstable during evenings when usage seems to hit the peak. "After 7 pm it gets difficult to browse any video sites, but Facebook does load with a lag," he said.While there’s no official word about how long the Wi-Fi will remain free, it could be for as short a span as the next two months.A “free” Wi-Fi service was also launched in the national capital in November spanning a 5 km area around Connaught Place which was claimed to be providing speeds up to 512kbps. Even though the service is marketed as a free facility, one cannot use it beyond the first 20 minutes.Afterwards, the recharge cards are available at Rs 10 for 30 minutes, Rs 20 for 60 minutes, and Rs 50 for 180 minutes for using the service.Scroll.in tested the Wi-Fi in the Connaught Place area and even though the signal was quite stable, connectivity differed on each phone. While one phone was able to connect and browse seamlessly, another couldn't even connect to the Wi-Fi and reach the authentication page at 8 pm on a Monday.Similarly, in Khan Market the Wi-Fi service is free for the first few minutes and recharge cards are available if one wants to browse more.India’s business hub does offer free Wi-Fi across all its metro stations but the service is only free for the first 15 minutes. However, browsing it for more than 15 minutes could turn out to be an expensive affair.A recharge card available for Rs 100 allows people to use the service for the next three hours. Even the free 15 minutes might not be available for everyone as the company seems to have planned to provide it to only first 5,000 commuters Mumbai’s Shivaji Park locality was the first one in the city to receive free Wi-Fi services from not one but two sources in July 2014. On the same day when Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena launched its Wi-Fi facility for the residents of the locality, Aditya Thackeray-led Yuva Sena also announced its Wi-Fi service which they claimed is “available for full 24 hours unlike the MNS’ plan”.To counter this, BJP also came up with its own scheme to provide free Wi-Fi and installed three routers in the Borivali area. However, the claims of these three parties don't appear to match user experience.According to the daily Mid-Day, none of the routers at Shivaji Park was working as of last month. "While the Shiv Sena accepted their services weren’t running to capacity, the MNS blamed it on a technical fault of the day," it said after testing connections and speaking to citizens. Even though the two parties' failed in the test, BJP didn't do too well either since only one of its three routers was found to be working.In February 2014, Reliance Jio kicked off its operations with Ahmedabad in Gujarat becoming the first city to receive its Wi-Fi services which are available in many public places, albeit in a 80-100 metres radius.The Wi-Fi service reportedly receives speeds faster than many popular 3G networks but the officials refrain from calling it 4G just yet.Scroll.in spoke to Abhishek Arya, a student of advertising in the city who said he was unable to use the service because of trouble in getting a password to go beyond the log-in screen. The process works by signing up for the free Wi-Fi, with the provider texting you a password that will then allow unfettered access to the internet, but this is rarely smooth. "Once it took more than 30 minutes for the password to arrive and sometimes it never even comes for me, I have given up on it even though many people claim that it works," he said.Another student Mahesh Sharma said that the Wi-Fi works but it is highly inconsistent with regards to speed. "On weekdays, one can easily browse all websites but it gets erratic on weekends," he said.Scroll.in, however, found Twitter users who seemed quite satisfied with the quality of the Wi-Fi.Here's a speed test report from the last year by one Twitter user:Of those surveyed Ahmedabad was the only city where the public Wi-Fi actually seems to be free as the original 72 hours are extendable on re-registration without any limit.Patna inaugurated the world’s "longest free Wi-Fi zone" in February last year and even the central government is said to be keen on emulating the model in other cities, according to reports.The service comes with 20 mbps bandwidth and offers speeds up to 512 kbps to up to 10,000 users.A medical worker Pranesh Kumar from Patna spoke to Scroll and said that the speeds have deteoriarated over time. "It was really fast when it was launched," he said. "Now it is just there but in this 5 km stretch it doesn't work for anything apart from refreshing small pages."Another user on Twitter claimed that the Wi-Fi is dysfunctional in his location.Bangalore was the first city in the country to receive free Wi-Fi hotspots in January last year. The service was launched at the iconic MG Road in central Bangalore and five other locations in the city and the plans for covering the whole city are in the works.According to claims, users can access internet at speeds up to 512 kbps but the usage is limited to three hours per day with a cap of 50mb.Scroll.in spoke to a law student in Bangalore who was aware of the service but had never tried using it. "What's the use of a Wi-Fi spread over such a small area?" said Sambit Arya. "I am still waiting for the 100 hotspots that were promised last year to be added in the city."Another journalist from Bangalore said that the facility is hardly ever useful because of very slow speeds.