Government is actively working on formulation of a ‘National Broadband Plan’. TRAI consultation with stakeholders on the subject, is underway and its recommendations are awaited. The National Broadband Plan would address Broadband connectivity to all the Villages, including through Optical Fibre Cable, as required. However, no final decision has been taken in the matter so far.
There are 10.34 million Broadband subscribers in the country as on 30.9.2010.
Following initiatives have been taken by the Government to increase the penetration of Broadband connection in the country:
• Allotment of Spectrum for 3G and BWA services to the private operators through auction. This will facilitate proliferation of broadband through mobile handset and wireless technology
• Permitting Sharing of infrastructure to the Service providers
• Setting up of 1,00,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs) by DIT by 2010 which will provide access of broadband.
• The Indian Telegraph Rules have been amended, and stream IV has been added under the title “Provision of broadband connectivity to villages in a phased manner” to bring provisioning of broadband connectivity to the rural areas under the purview of the USOF.
• USOF schemes for supporting shared infrastructure for mobile services in rural and remote areas. These towers will also be used to provide Broadband connectivity in the newly covered Block/Taluka headquarters.
• USOF, through BSNL, has started ‘Rural Wireline Broadband Scheme’ to provide wire-line broadband connectivity to rural & remote areas by leveraging the existing rural exchanges infrastructure and copper wire-line network. Under this scheme, BSNL will provide 8, 88,832 wire-line Broadband connections to individual users and Government Institutions over a period of 5-years, i.e., by 2014. The estimated subsidy outflow is Rs. 1500 crore in 5 years. As of October 2010, a total of 2, 25,266 broadband connections have been provided and 430 kiosks have been set up in rural and remote areas.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Shri Sachin Pilot in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.
Source;PIB
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