 "Cable TV network to increase broadband penetration")
The government is planning to use cable television service providers as franchisee networks to increase broadband penetration, especially in semi-urban and rural areas.
According to a recent discussion in the Department of Telecommunications, the Centre is planning to create a policy framework for broadband services providers, permitting them to get into franchisee agreements with cable TV service providers in rural areas. The reason behind the move is cable TV’s greater penetration. According to government data, there are 60.68 million broadband users in India. Of these, 14.86 million are on wire-line services and the remaining 40.01 million are on wireless cellular networks.
According to a recent discussion in the Department of Telecommunications, the Centre is planning to create a policy framework for broadband services providers, permitting them to get into franchisee agreements with cable TV service providers in rural areas. The reason behind the move is cable TV’s greater penetration. According to government data, there are 60.68 million broadband users in India. Of these, 14.86 million are on wire-line services and the remaining 40.01 million are on wireless cellular networks.
On the other hand, about 100 million Indian households are connected through the cable television network while there are about 64 million DTH subscribers at the end of March 2014.
According to the estimates of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the country should have 175 million broadband users by 2017, and the number would jump to 600 million by 2019 who would get a minimum download speed of 2 megabytes per second, instead of average 256 kilobytes per second now.
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Besides creating infrastructure for affordable and reliable broadband, the DoT has also noted that higher speed broadband services, up to 100 megabytes per second, should be made available. As per the Government target, high speed broadband should be made available to all the 6.5 lakhvillages across India by 2020.
As part of the robust infrastructure building process, the Governmentis already in process of connecting 2.5 lakh villages across the country with optical fibre, under the Rs 20,000-crore National Optical Fibre Network project. In a recent discussion, the DoT has also proposed to subsidise the broadband connections for low income and unconnected citizens.
A suitable policy intervention is required to reach each household in a gram panchayat through both wireline and wireless broadband. To ensure the last mile connectivity, the DoT stated, the government should allocate spectrum in short and medium term measure for boosting broadband penetration in the rural areas.