Estimating connectivity in Rural India

TRAI has initiated actions in the right direction by creating an exhaustive list of all the villages in India and has recently created a format for collecting information from Service Providers in order to estimate the available connectivity (Coaxial Cable, Optical Fiber Connectivity, Wire line and Wireless) in Rural Areas. The Major Telecom operators in India provide Mobile and Broadband services. Considering characteristics like coverage, ease of deployment and cost, a decent mix of technologies like optic fibre, WiMax and 3G should help mobile and broadband penetration increase many folds in the rural India.

4B USD USOF.

With the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) setting a higher base price for 3G spectrum and the Telecommunications minister confident of getting the Auction process through within the next 90 days, there is certainly going to be a lot of excitement in the coming days.

The Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) held by the Government of India, which is an accumulation of a small percentage of the revenue generated by the Mobile operators, has grown into over $4 Billion. With over 70% of India being largely rural, it is appropriate that the Government starts effectively deploying the USOF to improve m-literacy among the youth in rural India. Government, by providing subsidies should encourage the Telecom Operators to work with local administration and Distance education providers to achieve 100% m-literacy across the villages/Towns. The Telcos will have access to “m-literate” rural population, which certainly would help in improving ARPU.