TRAI seeks suggestions to drive broadband growth

NEW DELHI: To boost the slow growth of broadband, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday issued draft recommendations seeking comments of stakeholders on ‘growth of broadband’. The regulator said that the government had announced the Broadband Policy in 2004 and made certain projections for broadband subscribers’ growth, which was expected to accelerate but failed to take off.

“In order to facilitate growth of broadband, TRAI took certain regulatory initiatives from time to time. The authority has observed that even after taking various initiatives, the growth is slow and below expected level,” the statement said. There is an urgent need to identify various impediments affecting the growth of broadband and adopting forward looking approach to address impediments in a time bound manner, the statement added.

TRAI has invited comments from the stakeholders on ‘growth of broadband’ by September 28. The regulator has recommended that state owned PSUs, BSNL and MTNL should be encouraged to appoint franchisees for providing broadband services to supplement their efforts. Any procedural restrictions or limitations should be addressed immediately. Encourage Indian manufacturers to produce more customer premise equipments (CPE) to provide Broadband using DSL technology.

TRAI said that government should expedite decision on TRAI's recommendations regarding mechanism and pricing of spectrum for 3G and Broadband Wireless Access. The spectrum for 3G and WiMAX should be made available at the earliest to boost the deployment of broadband using these technologies. Government should ensure availability of more number of ‘Ku band’ transponders to roll out broadband services through Direct to Home (DTH) platform. It should also utilise Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund to provide subsidy for providing broadband services through satellite in remote and hilly areas.