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According to the regulator, the suggestions had been made to give
a fillip to the growth of Internet and broadband in India.
As per the Broadband Policy issued by the government, a target
of three million subscriber base was to be achieved by all the service
providers together by the end of year 2005.
Half of this target was to be met by public sector undertakings
(PSU) or government-controlled organizations like Mahanagar Telecom
Nigam Ltd (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam LTD (BSNL), which is India’s
largest telecom company in terms of infrastructure and reach.
Trai has said that progress reports submitted by various service
providers suggest there are only 0.61 million broadband subscribers
end September.
Out of this, only 0.26 million subscribers belong to PSUs, while
0.35 million subscribers are serviced by private sector companies.
“Hence the actual achievement by various operators together is
much below the policy target of three million for December 2005,
which is likely to be missed,” Trai said in a letter shot off to
the government today, indicating that more de-control and financial
incentives are needed.
Local loop or last mile access can be defined as the copper line
or fibre connecting the local node to homes or the line that enters
a subscriber’s home from a pole.
At the moment, BSNL and MTNL own majority share --- in a monopoly
situation almost --- of last mile access in Indian cities and towns
for historical reasons as they have been providing fixed line telephony
to Indian homes from the time when private players had not even
entered the Indian telecom market.
According to Trai, many of the competitive service providers have
mentioned that the broadband penetration target would be difficult
to achieve unless incumbents’ government-mandated monopoly is broken,
allowing private players
to at least use that infrastructure to deliver various services,
including broadband.
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