India to have 600 million broadband connections by 2020
New Delhi, July 29, 2017: The Union Government has planned the BharatNet project to provide 100 Mbps broadband connectivity to all Gram Panchayats approximately 2.5 lakh in the country.
Minister for Communications, Manoj Sinha said that as per information provided by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), there were 422.19 million broadband subscribers and the internet penetration (subscribers per 100 population) was 32.86% in the country as on 31st March 2017.
The National Telecom Policy-2012 envisages 600 million broadband connections by 2020, he said while replying to a question in Rajya Sabha.
Under first phase of the project, 1 lakh Gram Panchayats (GPs) are to be connected by laying underground Optical Fibre Cable(OFC) which is under implementation.
Connectivity will be provided to remaining 1.5 lakh GPs in the country using an optimal mix of underground fibre, fibre over power lines, radio and satellite media under the phase 2 to be completed by March 2019..
The Minister said that the provision of last mile access to the network and broadband service provisioning shall be through Wi-Fi or any other broadband access technologies in all 2.5 lakh GPs in the country.
As on July 23, 2017, the status of implementation of BharatNet showed completion of laying 221,925 kilometres long OFC in 100,299 GPs and the broadband connectivity provided in 25,426 GPs in the country.