DoT readies tender for broadband

With a view to meeting the target of 9 million broadband subscribers by next year, the department of telecom (DoT) is working on a draft tender for equipment to provide broadband connectivity in rural India.

The tender will be in addition to the one already announced for mobile towers in rural areas that will be shared by telecom operators.

"The equipment for broadband will leverage the proposed mobile towers, and through this, we plan to connect all villages in the country. Initially, we will connect one lakh common service centres (CSC) in the villages," a DoT official said.

The official said the ministry was also looking at increasing the speed to at least 1 mbps, introducing new tariffs, and increasing the size of downloads.

The ministry wants to give a thrust to the broadband segment in 2007 to take the number of broadband subscribers to 9 million from the current 2 million.

The broadband scheme will require installation of additional equipment in blocks in some of the proposed mobile towers. However, the size and the details of the scheme have not been decided, the official added.