There are 300 Wi-Fi zones in and around the city, and the count keeps rising. But how in the world would one know where the zones are, and how far they are from your location?Two entrepreneurs Ravi Pratap and Sharat Potharaju have developed a mobile app called WiFire which maps the Wi-Fi zones in the city and informs you about the closest ones. It also allows you to connect to a zone with just one tap.The duo has also mapped Wi-Fi zones in the city based on a survey which reveals that Indiranagar has the highest number of zones while HSR Layout has the lowest.The duo explained that once you open the WiFire app it picks up your current GPS location. It then gives a drop down list of all the public Wi-Fi zones around. The same is also represented on a map.Once you click on any one of the hotspots on the list, you can see its location and how far it is from where you are. A single click on the Wi-Fi icon allows you to connect to the network.At the backend, the app auto-fills the details required to connect, generates the one-time password (OTP), auto-reads it and then feeds it to your device. Within five seconds the user is connected to the Wi-Fi hotspot of their choice.“We have in our app an option wherein a person can add a public Wi-Fi they use. This leads them to a group called Wi-Fi Saviour, but other than that there is no monetary gain out of doing so,” Ravi said.The team, through its survey, also understood that while there is noy much information available on Wi-Fi spot locations there is a huge crowd-sourcing movement hoping to change that.“There are a huge number of crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspots on our application. This is mainly because people want to develop a network where Wi-Fi is omnipresent in the city, and accessible. They want more and more people to use the digital infrastructure. It is almost like creating a database themselves in the absence of one and helping each other.”The user can also feed in any public Wi-Fi (no password required) that they discover. This is also a single tap process, wherein the person just clicks on it and adds the Wi-Fi hotspot on the app.A recent example of this is when Chinnaswamy Stadium got its Wi-Fi facility. Within three hours of the Wi-Fi being setup, a user had already marked it on the app for others to connect.Ravi, said, “Public Wi-Fi networks are open use. These are typically in restaurants, pubs and stores. Considering that Indiranagar is one of the most popular hangout areas, it’s not surprising it has the highest number of Wi-Fi spots. The second highest is MG road. However, it is surprising that a place like Electronic City has only five hotspots.”According to their survey the least number of Wi-Fi spots are in HSR layout which has just three. The BMTC bus stops, the Kempegowda International Airport, the city railway station and Chinnaswamy stadium are also have Wi-Fi zones.This change in behaviour and crowd-sourcing information on Wi-Fi hotspots is a positive one and can help Bengaluru become a destination where one can access free public Wi-Fi almost anywhere.Public Wi-Fi is mainly used by people for emergency tasks such as booking cabs and autos back home, checking important work mails, etc. It is also used for social networking and viewing videos.