Though the exact numbers vary, India is believed to have between 500 million and 600 million Internet users, according to different estimates. This means that nearly half of the country's population is without Internet access. A large part of this is in the remote parts of the country where basic access to electricity is also a challenge.
Though the government says 100 percent of India's villages have been electrified, this does not translate to electricity in every home. Needless to say, that presents a challenge in bringing the populace online. On the other hand, while Jio's[1] entry has forced the telcos into a tariff war that has made data costs in India the lowest in the world[2], Internet access remains out of reach of a certain section of the country due to economic reasons. UK-based BuffaloGrid, which has been working in India for a few years now, believes it has a solution that can fix both the problems.
“There is a massive opportunity with 800 million people about to come online for the first time and we think that the model that's currently being applied to how you connect those people — which is urban-out — is limited, and in some ways doesn't really work best with the rural consumer who's generally bit more focused on getting a good deal or getting kind of cheap access,” Daniel Fogg, co-founder and COO, BuffaloGrid, tells Gadgets 360 at the sidelines of the London Tech Week[3]. “And we think we've got an alternative approach that we're really excited about rolling out.”
At the heart of the company's solution is a battery-powered box that acts as the hub. This hub lets people charge their smartphones — for free for a...