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India urges common R&D fund for APAC

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CIOL Bureau
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NEW DELHI: India has called for creation of a common R&D Fund for the Asia Pacific region, which can be utilized by identified centers of excellence in different countries that freely share their research findings and developments on Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) platform.





While addressing the APT Ministerial Conference on Broadband and ICT development at Bangkok, Thailand, Union Minister of Communications and IT Dayanidhi Maran said "The governments and the industry can perhaps fund this research, along with contributions from the United Nations (UN) as well as multi-lateral funding agencies". Maran stated that since communications is key to information, which in turn is vital for removing illiteracy, poverty and hunger, the need for sharing of resources and strategies cannot be overstated.





Emphasizing the importance of ICT in the field of education, health, commerce and governance, Maran stated, "Internet and broadband access are widely recognized as catalyst for economic and social development of the country. Not only, will these contribute to economic growth, but would also enable the development of a vast pool of skilled manpower." He stated that there need to be a shift from voice communication to non-voice applications namely data communications, value added applications and broadband interactive services.





The Minister said that most economies are still struggling to realize nation wide broadband access principally because of high fixed cost of broadband network development. He added, "Cost effective infrastructure including that of handsets as well as reasonable tariff rates will determine the future growth of Internet and broadband access in the developing countries".



The Minister further added that the benefits of the access can only be realized if the usage is high and consumer is not inhibited by high cost. All parties with a stake have a role to play. Manufacturers for example, need to devise solutions appropriate to lower income regions and operators need to strive to find innovative solutions to keep end user costs down, he added.





Highlighting the importance of a proper regulatory framework for development of Internet and Broadband services, Maran stated that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had recently made some useful recommendations in this regard and had suggested a target of 20 million broadband subscribers and 40 million Internet subscribers by the year 2010.

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