Imagined Connectivities: Synthesized Conceptions of Public Wi-Fi in Urban India

By Nithya Sambasivan, Paul M. Aoki. 2017

12 citations recorded by the source corpus.

India and other economies in the Global South are undergoing a proliferation in public Wi-Fi, with large-scale deployments from industry and government. In this paper, we report on a qualitative study on public Wi-Fi conceptions as held by urban Indians, textit{a priori} to connecting to a network. Our findings show that prior public Wi-Fi users and non-users alike raised a surprising range and depth of conceptions---ranging from suspicion of operators' intentions to monetize, to concerns about sexual image morphing, to fears of phone wipeouts, to aspiration---which were informed by popular media, BlueTooth cultures, and social learning. We found these conceptions of Wi-Fi networks to significantly influence adoption of public Wi-Fi. With enormous investments in public Wi-Fi initiatives, we call for network providers to address these deep conceptions among emerging users; by suggesting ways to build public awareness, better user experiences, and business model innovation.

Subfields: Computer Networks and Communications, Information Systems, Evaluation & Benchmarks

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Computer Networks and Communications

  1. Ben Hutchinson

In Information Systems

  1. Vinodkumar Prabhakaran
  2. Erin Arnesen
  3. Ben Hutchinson
  4. Tulsee Doshi
  5. Sunny Consolvo
  6. Nithya Sambasivan

In Evaluation & Benchmarks

  1. Ben Hutchinson
  2. Vinodkumar Prabhakaran

Citations in the corpus