A day ahead of the ‘India Telecom 2010' summit on ‘Broadband for All', the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday recommended setting up a ‘National Broadband Network' at a cost of about Rs.60,000 crore to achieve 16-crore broadband connections by 2014.
Issuing its recommendations on ‘National Broadband Plan', TRAI said the project would be financed by universal service obligation (USO) fund and the loan given by the government. “At present in India, the penetration of broadband is 0.8 per cent as against the tele-density of 60.99 as of September, 2010. The number of broadband connections is only one crore as against a target of two crore by the year 2010. Therefore, there is an urgent need to facilitate rapid growth of broadband,” it said.
Phase I to cover all cities
Stating that a ‘National Optical Fibre Agency' (NOFA) will be set up to establish this broadband network, TRAI said the National Broadband Network will be an open access optical fibre network connecting all habitation with population of 500 and above. It will be established in two phases. The first phase covering all cities, urban areas and gram panchayats will be completed by 2012. Phase II will see the extension of the network to all the habitations having a population more than 500, to be completed by 2013. The optical fibre network would support following bandwidths of 10 Mbps download speed per household in 63 Metro and large cities (covered under JNURM) for every wireline connection by 2014; 4 Mbps download speed per household in 352 cities for every wireline connection by 2014; and 2 Mbps download speed per household in towns/villages for every wireline connection by 2014.
PTI reports:
Besides NOFA, the regulator also recommended formation of State Optical Fiber Agency (SOFA) in every State with 51 per cent equity held by NOFA and the balance by the respective State governments. Both the government holding companies are expected to ring in revenue to the tune of Rs.26,000 crore a year.
