Why doesn’t any company Wi-Fi an Indian Town?

I was looking at the amount of press coverage of Google Wi-Fi-ing Mountain View in California. I mean, hey, that’s just one small town in California but the news had hit practically every major newspaper in India. Sure, much of it has to do with the Google brand name.

It’s clearly an opportunity in waiting for an ISP or even better, a corporate company, to garner a lot of PR and goodwill if they could try that out at in a small town in India. I’m not even saying big cities. Yeah, many years back Sify tried to do that at select spots in Bangalore but for some reasons they gave up on the idea. Besides it was paid access.

I’m talking about no-strings, free as in FREE Wi-Fi. Just open it up. Sure, it’s going to cost the company but look at all the benefits. It’ll pull in the people. That’s be Pinko Marketing at its best. Awesome PR opportunity. Great brand recall. Amazing goodwill that money can’t buy.

I mean, look at Google, Flickr, YouTube. They all gave it away. All. For Free. And after they have built a very strong base, found non-intrusive ways to make money. As they say, get the people in first. The money will automatically come.