FTTH to bridge digital divide

NEW DELHI, INDIA: As the sixth annual FTTH Asia Pacific Council Conference concluded here on Thursday, the industry expressed the need to accelerate fiber to the home to bridge socio-economic divide and empower the citizens.

Anil Pande, VP, FTTH Council Asia Pacific, said that the council was founded in 2005 to accelerate the access of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) in Asia Pacific and the industry on business models. The two-day event attracted close to 500 delegates across the Asia Pacific region.

Speaking at the inaugural address, Kapil Sibal, Minister for Communications and IT, said that government is committed to facilitate fiber to the rural areas so as to provide access to e-health and e-education services to the poor.

"Decided by the high-level committee, that comprises Sam Pitroda and Nandan Nilekani, the national fibre optic plan has three stages," said Sibal. The Ministry is also expected to go by the advice of experts on FTTH.

As per the rollout plan BSNL will lay down fiber with private players, set up an organization and get advisors and experts from the government agencies and allow private companies to operate and manage the fiber network.

Kuldeep Singh, CMD, MTNL said that they have recently launched FTTH. "We are focussing to overcome the bandwidth issues related to fiber," he informed. Singh said that FTTH will give subscribers limitless possibilities by serving their requirements.

MTNL has already laid an enormous amount of fiber in Delhi and Mumbai. "Planning and execution is a challenge in cable distribution particularly in Brownfield areas," he said. Frank Jaffer, president of the FTTH Council Asia Pacific gave closing address and thanked the delegates.