“We will have 100 million broadband subscribers by 2014 and this is other than wireless mobile broadband, which itself will be more than 50 million,” said J.S. Sarma, chairman of Trai (The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India), at an industry event.
Trai sees broadband at all gram panchayats by 2012 and all villages with a population of 500 by 2013. A group of villages make up a gram panchayat.
Trai officials said all villages should be linked through optical fibre cables so that high-speed broadband could be provided to deliver services such as education, e-health and gaming.
The optical fibre network would help various service providers and users get broadband through wired and wireless solutions. Till now, the broadband facility has been limited to metros and major cities.
An Internet connectivity of above 256 kbps is defined as broadband in India. It has been argued that broadband should be redefined as connectivity speeds in excess of 2Mbps.
The proposals would also focus on the affordability of tariffs.
According to Trai, availability of broadband services at affordable tariff will provide access to enormous information, facilitate delivery of civic services, increase GDP contributions, generate employment and enhance productivity.
Trai has stated in a consultation paper that the non-availability of national broadband network to provide connectivity up to village level, non-availability of content in vernacular language and affordability of broadband were factors affecting the growth of the service.
According to Trai, the high broadband tariff in the country was because of the lack of sufficient competition.
Value-added service licence
The regulator is also considering proposals to bring software for value-added services (VAS) for mobile phones such as caller tunes and ringback tunes under the licensing ambit.
Trai officials said the consultation paper would include issues of revenue-share between telecom operators and application providers.
VAS operators complain that they provide features, content and a range of services like ringer tunes to operators, but in the absence of a proper regulatory structure, they don’t get adequate financial return from telecom firms.
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Quelle/Source: The Calcutta Telegraph, 07.12.2010
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