TRAI sought views to improve broadband connectivity

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has asked for the public views in order to boost the broadband services in the country and also to increase the proliferation and use of high speed internet. The regulator mentioned in the consultation paper that, “The objective…is to discuss issues contributing to the poor broadband penetration in India and solicit stakeholders’ views on actions required to be taken both by the Government and the service providers to accelerate the proliferation and use of broadband in the country.”

TRAI has also asked for opinions related to timeline auction of the 700 MHz band one of the most premium spectrum for the telecom services. The regulator has also sought views on the method of installing various broadband technologies and the reduction of cost involved in the method. Along with this they also focused on measures required to encourage content service providers to host content in the data centre situated within India, issues in laying optical fibre, freeing spectrum bands for Wi-Fi technology and many others.

The paper focuses on the objectives of the National Telecom Policy 2012. The policy will target to “provide affordable and reliable broadband-on-demand by  the year 2015 and to achieve 175 million broadband connections by the year 2017 and 600 million by the year 2020 at minimum 2 Mbps download speed and making available higher speeds of at least 100 Mbps on demand.”