Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, Oct 08, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, Oct 08, 2004 |
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Info-Tech
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Broadband Use USO fund for broadband penetration, says TRAI Our Bureau
Mr Pradip Baijal, Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Mr Sam Pitroda, Chairman, C-Sam Inc., and Mr Sunil Kant Munjal, President, CII, at the Broadband India seminar in the Capital on Thursday. — Kamal Narang
New Delhi , Oct. 7 THE Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today suggested using the universal services obligation (USO) fund for subsidising bandwidth to boost broadband penetration. It also said Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd would benefit if it unbundled local loop for use by private operators to offer broadband services. Speaking at the Broadband Conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, Mr Pradip Baijal, Chairman, TRAI said, "Bandwidth rates are very high in the country at $15.63 (around Rs 716.8) per kbps per month as compared to $0.25 (around Rs 11.50) per kbps per month in Korea. There is a need to subsidise bandwidth with USO funds to revolutionise broadband connectivity." USO Fund was set up by an Act of the Parliament for funding government's the rural telephony programme. On the issue of local loop unbundling Mr Baijal said, "As I understand, unbundling of local loop should benefit BSNL, though they think otherwise. British Telecom had resisted till the end saying it would face loss due to unbundling. But today they are aggressively selling last mile. It is a matter of perception. Everywhere the incumbents resist the unbundling of local loop." Local loop unbundling would allow small operators to use BSNL's nationwide network to offer broadband services in small areas. The Government is expected to announce a detailed policy for broadband services in the next few weeks. As part of this, the Department of Telecom is looking at various issues including providing fiscal sops for broadband use and whether or not to allow local loop unbundling. On the controversy over illegal international long distance calls being undertaken by private operators, Mr Baijal said the telecom regulator did not have vigilance power or investigative infrastructure to check grey traffic. Referring to the dispute between Reliance and BSNL, Mr Baijal said, "DoT has checked it and has the machinery to check the routing of illegal traffic. They have given notice to the company. We had received the complaint from BSNL and forwarded it to DoT."
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