Make-in-India OEM  •  Enterprise WiFi 6 · Switching · Security · AIOps Cloud
PM-WANI — FOR BUSINESSES

Become a PM-WANI PDO: Run Public Wi-Fi as a Business

PM-WANI lets shops, cafes, kiosks and small businesses offer paid public Wi-Fi as a Public Data Office (PDO). Immunity Networks is a certified PDO Aggregator (PDOA) and supplies the complete stack a PDO needs — certified access points, a compliant captive portal with billing, and the cloud platform that keeps it all compliant.

Register interest as a PDO

Who this page is for

This page is for people who want to earn from public Wi-Fi — shop owners, entrepreneurs, cable operators, ISPs and venue owners. If you are simply looking for free Wi-Fi to use, this is not what you need; PM-WANI hotspots are found through the official PM-WANI apps on your phone.

How the PM-WANI model works

RoleWho it isWhat they do
PDOA shop, cafe, kiosk or venueHosts the hotspot and sells access to the public
PDOAImmunity NetworksAggregates PDOs, provides the platform, authorisation and compliance
App providerPM-WANI appsHow the public discovers and connects to hotspots
Central registryGovernmentRegisters the participants in the framework

As a PDO you provide the location and the internet connection. As your PDOA, Immunity provides everything else.

What you get as an Immunity PDO

Certified hardware

The Lotus Alpha OD is India's first PM-WANI certified access point — a weatherproof outdoor Wi-Fi 6 unit built for streets, shopfronts and open spaces. Indoor coverage uses the Lotus Alpha AX820. All of it is designed and manufactured in India and MTCTE certified (and CE, FCC & RoHS compliant).

A portal that people actually get through

The NetGuard X5 Controller runs the captive portal, authentication and prepaid or voucher billing. Customers buy access; the accounting that splits revenue between the PDO and the PDOA runs on the same system that carries the traffic.

Compliance handled centrally

Public Wi-Fi carries mandatory logging obligations. Central, tamper-evident IPDR storage with configurable retention is provided through NetCloud Central, aligned to DoT requirements, so compliance is a report rather than a project.

Onboarding and support

Zero-touch provisioning means a new hotspot can be brought online quickly. Support comes from Immunity's India-based engineering team, direct from the OEM that manufactures the hardware.

What it takes to start

  1. A location with footfall. A shop, cafe, kiosk, market, transport hub or public space where people wait or gather.
  2. A broadband connection. Your existing connection is usually the starting point; we will advise on what the expected user numbers require.
  3. Registration. PM-WANI participants register with the central registry. As your PDOA, we guide you through the process.
  4. The equipment. One or more certified access points, sized to the space, plus the portal and billing platform we provide.

Revenue depends entirely on footfall, pricing and local demand, so we do not publish income projections. What we can do is walk through the economics honestly against your specific location before you commit to anything.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a PDO and a PDOA?

A PDO is the venue that hosts the hotspot and sells access. A PDOA aggregates many PDOs and provides the platform, authorisation and compliance behind them. Immunity is a certified PDOA.

Do I need a telecom licence to become a PDO?

The PM-WANI framework was designed to let small businesses offer public Wi-Fi without a full telecom licence, working through a PDOA. We will confirm the current requirements that apply to your situation as part of onboarding.

Can I run this alongside my existing business Wi-Fi?

Yes. Public hotspot traffic is kept separate from your own business network using VLAN segmentation and gateway policy, so customers on the public hotspot cannot reach your internal systems.

How many access points do I need?

For a single shopfront, often one. Larger venues and outdoor areas need a survey. We size this before quoting.

Is the equipment certified?

Our equipment is MTCTE certified (and CE, FCC & RoHS compliant), with products listed on the Trusted Telecom Portal, and the Lotus Alpha OD is India's first PM-WANI certified access point. Ask us for current certification status on specific models.

Talk to us about becoming a PDO

Tell us where your location is and roughly how many people pass through it. Our team will explain what is involved, what it costs and what it realistically earns.

Register interest as a PDO

Looking for office, hotel, hospital or campus Wi-Fi instead? See enterprise Wi-Fi solutions.

Choosing a location that works

Public Wi-Fi earns where people already stop. Before investing, it is worth being honest about whether your location has the two ingredients that matter.

Dwell time

People buy access when they expect to stay long enough to use it. A tea stall where people sit, a waiting area, a market, a transport interchange or a hostel gate all work better than a location people walk past. Footfall alone is not enough — footfall that pauses is what counts.

A gap in coverage or affordability

Demand is strongest where mobile data is expensive relative to local incomes, unreliable indoors, or heavily used for video. In areas where everyone already has cheap, fast mobile data and no reason to stop, the economics are harder. We would rather tell you that before you buy equipment.

What the equipment does day to day

Once live, the hotspot runs largely without your involvement.

Your day-to-day involvement is keeping the power and broadband on. Configuration, compliance and platform operation sit with us.

Compliance, in plain terms

Offering internet access to the public brings obligations that do not apply to your private business Wi-Fi. Under the PM-WANI framework these are handled through the PDOA rather than by each individual shop.

User identification

Public users are identified at the point of onboarding, through the app or portal, rather than being given anonymous open access.

Mandatory logging and retention

Internet Protocol Detail Records are retained centrally in tamper-evident storage with configurable retention aligned to Department of Telecommunications requirements. Because this is central, you are not responsible for maintaining logging infrastructure on site.

Separation from your own network

Public hotspot traffic is isolated from your business systems using VLAN segmentation and gateway policy, so a customer on the hotspot cannot reach your billing machine, cameras or back-office computer.

Requirements under the framework can change. We track them and will confirm the current position that applies to your deployment in writing during onboarding.

Being realistic about the economics

We do not publish income projections for PM-WANI hotspots, and you should be sceptical of anyone who does. Earnings depend on footfall, dwell time, local pricing tolerance, mobile data competition and how visible the hotspot is at the location — variables that differ street by street.

What we will do is sit down with your specific site, look at those variables honestly, and tell you whether it is worth doing. Sometimes the answer is that a single location is marginal but a cluster of five is viable. Occasionally the answer is that your location is not suited to it, in which case we will say so rather than sell you equipment.

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