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Our Bureau

Hyderabad, March 19 The Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) of Government of India will spend Rs 5,000 crore to ensure cellular connectivity in rural areas across the country, Mr Ajay Bhattacharya, Administrator, USOF, said.

Speaking after formally launching ‘Ericsson Tower Tube’ – a radio base station site concept of Ericsson – here on Thursday, Mr Bhattacharya said the USOF had set up 7,800 towers for the spread of cellular network.

“We will be starting the second phase with an aim to link every habitation having over 500 people soon. About Rs 5,000 crore would be spent on this,” he said.

The country would need a minimum of one lakh towers to increase teledensity in rural areas, he said, adding that as of now, the rural teledensity is at 13 per cent as against 75 per cent in urban areas.

USOF had a fund availability of Rs 14,000 crore aimed at increasing the teledensity, he said. “However, there are some issues on the amount of Fund with the Finance Ministry which are being discussed,” he added.

All telecom operators in India contribute 5 per cent of their revenues every year to the USO Fund.

Mr P. Balaji, Vice-President (Marketing & Strategy), Ericsson India, said the new tower tube developed by his company is an eco-friendly and cost-effective concept fully encapsulating house base stations.

A prototype of the tower is fabricated at a site at Ibrahimpatnam near here. The costs of the tower, when compared with the existing traditional towers, would be lesser by over 40 per cent in the tube tower, he claimed.

“It only needs 1/10th of steel compared to traditional sites and consumes only 40 per cent of the power now being used,” he said

The cost of setting up a traditional tower site now ranges between Rs 30-40 lakh, he added.

More Stories on : Telecommunications | Rural Development

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