Trai favours independent agency for National Broadband Plan -Governance Now

Trai favours independent agency for National Broadband Plan

Trai has favoured an independent agency National Optic Fibre Agency (NOFA), in place of state-owned BSNL, for executing the National Broadband Plan (NBP).

PTI | May 5, 2011

Telecom regulator Trai has favoured an independent agency National Optic Fibre Agency (NOFA), in place of state-owned BSNL, for executing the National Broadband Plan (NBP).

Trai said this in its recommendations on NBP that have been submitted to the Telecom Ministry.

It said that BSNL, as the executing agency, could see the diversion of its senior managers from the core task of providing telecom services.

Trai said, since crucial decisions -- the scope of work, execution strategy, funding requirement and timeframe -- would be decided by a High-level committee, the possibility of a conflict of interest between BSNL as executing agency and as a member of the HLC needs to be considered.

"DoT needs to consider whether the PSU, given its autonomous status, can be controlled in terms of decisions and supervision by a High Level Committee or USOF," Trai said in a statement.

Further, it urged the Department of Telecom (DoT) to ensure that optic fibre network should be extended to all habitations that have a population of more than 500 people.

"The scheme proposed by the DoT envisages provision of optic fibre network only up to the Gram Panchayat level. The authority (Trai) would strongly urge that as recommended in the NBP, the optic fibre network should be extended to all habitations having population of more than 500 persons," said the Trai recommendations.

DoT had sought views from Trai on the proposals for the creation of a National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) for providing broadband connectivity to all Gram Pachayats.

In an effort to achieve 160 million broadband connections by 2014, Trai recommended last year the setting up a national broadband network at a cost of about Rs 60,000 crore.

Trai said the project would be financed by universal service obligation (USO) fund and the loan given by the government.

It has asked DoT to review the proposed plan to exclude urban areas.

It also observed that the proposal of the authority for creating NOFA is not being pursued, and said that a separate agency would be created to provide incremental network.

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