The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is expected to finalise a National Broadband Policy, within 100 days, under which access to high speed internet services would be considered a basic necessity.
The department?s move is aimed at formulating a legislation – Right to Broadband – which would ensure that broadband is included among basic necessities like education and health.
While framing the new policy, DoT is expected to look at ways of increasing broadband penetration across the country as well as convergence of various technologies and platforms such as cable TV, optical fibre, wireless connection through spectrum, very small aperture terminal and satellite.
At present, different departments are in-charge of various technologies. For example, cable TV comes under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and satellite related issues are majorly governed by the Department of Space. The new broadband policy aims to harmonise the functioning between different departments to ensure that all the available technologies are leveraged to deliver affordable broadband services to the end user.
