The Hindu Business Line : Govt sets up group to plan rural broadband rollout

New Delhi May 11 The Government has formed an Inter-Ministerial Group for planning the rollout of broadband infrastructure in rural areas with support from the Universal Services Obligation (USO) fund.

The group, comprising Ministries of Health, Home, Human Resource Development, Panchayati Raj and IT, will discuss how the various Government Departments and agencies spread across the country can promote the usage of broadband.

The various Ministries will indicate their requirement for broadband infrastructure, which in turn will enable telecom operators to build their business plan while bidding for the USO fund-initiated rural broadband project.

The USO fund administrator is expected to float tenders inviting telecom operators to bid for setting up broadband infrastructure in rural areas.

Consultations with the industry are also being undertaken before the terms and conditions for the bidding process are finalised.

The Government has set a target of adding 6.5 million broadband subscribers in 2007, of which 4.5 million are expected to be provided by BSNL.

BSNL has already brought 600 towns under broadband coverage and plans to add 900 by the end of 2007.

The Government is also planning to extend broadband coverage to all secondary and higher secondary schools by 2007 and public healthcare centres by 2010.

The group will discuss ways to encourage broadband usage in Government institutions spread across the country.

Broadband growth has been sluggish, with the total subscriber base just over two million.

In comparison, Shanghai city alone has three million broadband users.

The Government has declared 2007 as the year of the broadband and expects 10 million subscribers by year-end.

So far, most of the broadband deployment has happened on fixed-line networks, a reason for the slow growth.

Operators are now looking at wireless technologies like Wi-Max to speed up their rollout plans.

More Stories on : Telecommunications | Rural Development | Broadband

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