TRAI releases proposal to boost rural teledensity
By agencies   |   Tuesday, 04 October 2005, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has released its new recommendations to improve and grow telecom services in the rural areas. According to the Trai, the recommendations provide for sharing of infrastructure, discount in license fee and spectrum charges to mobile carriers, development of local content and automatic clearance for deployment of towers in rural areas. Since teledensity is interlinked with the level of development, the large differential between rural (1.940 and urban teledensity (31.1) cannot be sustainable, Trai said. In its recommendation to the government on the “growth of telecom services in rural India,” Trai has suggested the creation of mobile infrastructure in rural areas through the universal service obligation fund, which will reduce the subsidy to the tune of $2 billion compared to the projected subsidy of $6.2 billion by 2010 under the existing regime. If the scheme is implemented early, the Trai estimates that India would achieve rural density of around 15 percent by December 2007, and this, combined with expected urban teledensity to 22.98 percent easily meeting target of 250 million subscribers set out by the ministry of telecommunications and IT. The thrust of the recommendation is to set up mobile and broadband infrastructure and offer cheaper telecom services to rural subscribers. . Under the present scheme, USO Fund is being used only to support rural fixed line telephones. "Due to technological and market developments, the USO policy, which presently provides rural telecommunication in a limited manner, may need some revision. Mobile telephony has been the key driver in boosting urban tele-density, one also notes the low penetration of cellular mobile services in rural areas due to the inadequate BTS infrastructure," TRAI said. TRAI has suggested making it mandatory for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and other bandwidth owners to lease out capacity on their optic fibre cable network to cellular operators rather than ask the operators to lay their own cables. The bandwidth will have to be leased out at 30 per cent lower rates than the TRAI specified ceiling and the cable owner would be compensated from the USO Fund. The regulator has said that incentives must be given to the bandwidth owners to unbundle the last mile. "Unless there is substantial motivation and a win-win situation for all, mandating the provisioning of leased lines even in rural areas, could create disputes. At the same time utilizing this infrastructure rather than waiting for new one to be laid, has to be a national priority, " TRAI said. TRAI has suggested a reduction in USO levy from the existing level of 5 percent of the operator's revenue since the total subsidy is set to come down.

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