In order to transform the entire country into an ?always-connected? society, the government has decided to recognise telecom and broadband connectivity as a basic necessity, like education and health, in the draft New Telecom Policy (NTP), 2011. According to telecom minister Kapil Sibal, India will have 175 million broadband subscribers by 2015 and 600 million by 2010 at a minimum 2 mega bytes per second (MBps) download speed.
In order to achieve that, the proposed draft policy talks about encouraging fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology by independent infrastructure providers that will help transform cities and towns into an ?always-connected? society. Also, there will be a revision of the existing broadband download speed of 256 KBps to 512 KBps, and subsequently, to 2 MBps by 2015, and higher speeds of at least 100 MBps thereafter, Sibal said.
In order to achieve a 100% broadband connectivity for all Indians, the draft NTP 2011 talks about optimal utilisation of spectrum and reduction in operational costs, especially in the rural areas. ?The use of low power and renewable energy solutions will be promoted to reduce the operational costs and achieve sustainability in the long run,? the draft policy said.
The government also proposed to make available the unlicensed spectrum for the proliferation of wireless broadband services. There will also be a back haul of spectrum below 12 Giga hertz prime band so as to ensure the availability of spectrum to meet current and future demand.
?In order to stimulate the demand of broadband applications and services, the telecom department will work closely with the IT department specially in the promotion of content creation in vernacular languages which would enhance the investment in All-Internet Protocol (IP) networks including NGN,? Sibal said.
Under the right to broadband mission, the government will build synergies between existing, on going and future government programmes, like e-governance, e-panchayat, NREGA, NKN Aadhar, Aakash tablet among others, to empower citizens.
Under draft NTP 2011 policy, the government will put special emphasis on providing reliable and affordable broadband access to rural and remote areas by an appropriate combination of optical fibre, wireless and other technologies. ?Optical fibre network will be initially laid up to the village panchayat level by funding from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). Extension of optical fibre connectivity from village panchayats progressively to all villages and habitations will come thereafter. Access to this optical fibre network will be open and technology neutral,? Sibal said.