According to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the government has completed the roll out of optical fibre to 20,000 gram panchayats under the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project. Apart from this, DoT has stated that work in 10,000 gram panchayats is almost completed. As per the previously mentioned targets, 50,000 village panchayats were to be covered by March 31, 2015. Further, NOFN aims to connect 100,000 gram panchayats by March 2016 and another 100,000 by end 2016.
DoT is of the view that the scale of implementation under new government has been 375 per cent compared to what was achieved by the previous regime. Under new regime 1,600 kilometers of fibre has been laid out. The new government had set up a committee to analyse the present structure of NOFN. The committee has recently submitted its report regarding the same, along with its recommendations, to the Ministry of Communications and IT.
These recommendations include the renaming of the NOFN project as ‘BhartNet’. Under BharatNet, the committee expects retail broadband services would be made available at prices below Rs 150 per month in poorer states and prices around Rs 250 per month in more economically advanced states, delivering speeds 2 Mbps to 20 Mbps. The panel has suggested that the connectivity be provided in a ring like architecture at district, block and village panchayat level with an interconnection of various technologies. It has also suggested the use of technologies such as optical fibre network, microwave back-haul spectrum and satellite for regions with difficult terrain, in order to provide broadband connectivity.
