Telecom regulator TRAI on Monday advised that the Division of Telecommunications ought to strategy the defence ministry for accessing a part of its optical fibre community or appropriate bandwidth to increase telecom protection within the far-flung areas of Himachal Pradesh.
The regulator really helpful that in 4 districts — Lahaul and Spiti, Mandi, Kullu and Chamba — the villages which can be but to be linked below BharatNet Venture ought to be instantly linked on VSAT media that may be surrendered as quickly because the optical fibre cable (OFC) backhaul is made out there.
The recognized districts have 181 uncovered villages, of which 14 are deliberate to be lined below the ‘354 villages scheme’ and 142 are to be lined below ‘Saturation of 4G Cell’ scheme of USOF. These schemes nonetheless pass over 25 villages from telecom protection.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in its suggestions on “enhancing telecom connectivity and infrastructure in far-flung areas of Himachal Pradesh” advised that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) ought to take up with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for allocation of 1 or two pairs of OFC on NFS community for extending telecom protection (together with broadband companies) to the villages situated in far-flung or border areas within the state below BharatNet undertaking.
“In case the identical shouldn’t be possible, MoD could also be approached to allocate appropriate bandwidth on its present purposeful OFC to increase the telecom protection to such villages,” Trai mentioned.
Beneath Venture Kranti, also referred to as Community For Spectrum (NFS), a nationwide OFC community is being carried out by BSNL, whereby nearly 60,000 kilometres of OFC is being rolled out for unique use by defence forces in lieu of 65MHz spectrum surrendered by the defence for public sale by the DoT.
The regulator mentioned that it’s already in receipt of a reference on enabling ICR for distant and hilly areas continuously liable to pure disaster-based emergency conditions and it’ll provide you with separate suggestions on this regard after due consultations.
TRAI has really helpful that capital expenditure (Capex) and working expenditure (Opex) required for offering telecom infrastructure and connectivity to the 25 uncovered villages (falling below the three income districts of Lahaul and Spiti, Kullu and Chamba) ought to be funded by the federal government by Common Providers Obligation Fund (USOF).
“The authority recommends that DoT might take up the case with the state authorities of HP for not levying any RoW (proper of method) expenses to telecom service suppliers and IP-Is for connecting distant and hilly areas within the state together with all areas in 4 districts,” TRAI mentioned.
The regulator has advised that the DoT ought to take up with the state authorities, NHAI and BRO, that in all highway development, highway widening or different associated works ought to be finished with prior coordination with telecom operators, and the legal responsibility of contractor for making funds for damages to telecom networks ought to be included ab-initio within the contracts.
“DoT also needs to take up with the state authorities of HP to discover the opportunity of setting up utility ducts in all future highway widening and new highway development tasks. It will assist in fast roll-out of all utility infrastructure, together with telecom, within the state,” TRAI mentioned.
The regulator has advised that the DoT ought to take up with the Himachal authorities to contemplate offering electrical energy to telecom websites inside 15 days of connections request at utility or industrial tariff and think about waiving off final mile set up expenses for extending electrical connection to telecom websites in distant and hilly areas.