TRAI gears up to address RSP issue

NEW DELHI: In continuation with its efforts towards addressing the issues related to Universal Service Obligation (USO), Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the Indian telecom watchdog is all set to propose its set of recommendations on the issue of Rural Service Providers (RSP) in the country.

The regulatory authority is modeling its recommendations keeping in mind areas like registration issues for different operators in the rural areas, utilization of spectrum, rollout action plan and increasing the broadband penetration to rural India. The paper is likely to be out in a week's time.

"We have clearly mentioned the importance of rural population in our previous consultation papers. So this would be in continuation to our efforts in increasing the connectivity levels in rural areas of the country," informed TRAI member DPS Seth.

Even though India is one of the top technically developed countries, 80 percent of Indians have no access to proper information and good communication infrastructure. As the world's second most populated country, more than 70 percent of the Indian population resides in villages.

"It is keeping these issues in mind that we are formulating our recommendations towards providing RSP license to service providers. At present we have different options to connect the rural parts of the country, we are putting our recommendations based on our observation of business models and its dynamics in the rural India," he added.

At a time when the government has already proposed an increased cap towards FDI, telecom sector is about to be the cynosure of the investor community. TRAI's timely move towards making sure the basic connectivity in rural parts would go a long way in connecting rural India to the Internet mainstream.

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