Lok Sabha Question No. 50 (STARRED), answered on 2015-12-02
Subject: Broadband in Villages
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: RAMSINH PATALYABHAI RATHWA, CHANDRA PRAKASH JOSHI

## MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

## LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO.50

TO BE ANSWERED ON 2 nd  December, 2015

## BROADBAND IN VILLAGES

- *50. SHRI RAMSINH RATHWA: SHRI CHANDRA PRAKASH JOSHI:

Will the Minister of COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state:

- (a) whether  the  Government  is  satisfied  with  the  quality  of  broadband  services provided in the country;
- (b) if not, the reasons therefor and the corrective action taken by the Government in this regard, State-wise;
- (c) whether the Government has fixed any time-frame for linking of all villages of the country with broadband ensuring digital literacy along with access to computers and providing 3G/wifi connectivity to villages;
- (d) if so, the details thereof and the targets achieved in this regard, State-wise; and
- (e) whether  the  Government  plans  to  involve  private  sector  in  the  National  Optic Fiber  Network  (NOFN)  project,  if  so,  the  details  thereof  and  the  action  taken  and progress made in this regard?

## ANSWER

## THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD)

- (a) to  (e) A Statement  is laid on the table of the House.

## STATEMENT TO BE LAID ON THE TABLE OF THE LOK SABHA IN RESPECT OF PARTS  (a)  TO  (e)  OF  LOK    SABHA  STARRED  QUESTION  NO.50  FOR  2 nd December, 2015 REGARDING 'BROADBAND IN VILLAGES'.

- (a) &(b) (i) Telecom  Regulatory  Authority  of  India  (TRAI)  has  been  monitoring the performance of service providers, against the quality of service benchmarks for the various parameters through compliance reports submitted by the service providers on quarterly basis.
- (ii)         For this purpose, TRAI has laid down the quality of service standards for  broadband  service  through  'Quality  of  Service  of  Broadband  service Regulations, 2006 dated 6 th October, 2006.'  For assessing the performance of service providers relating to wireless data services, TRAI has laid down the quality of service standards for wireless data services through 'The Standards of quality of service for wireless data services regulations, 2012.'
- (iii)         As per the performance monitoring report for the quarter ending June, 2015 for Broadband services, all the service providers are generally meeting the benchmarks related to the parameters for its Broadband services.
- (iv)        Non Compliance with the benchmarks is mainly observed in respect of the  parameters  (1)  'Response  time  to  the  customer  for  assistance  %age  of calls  answered  by  the  operators  (voice  to  voice)  within  90  seconds'  in  7 service areas of Bharti Airtel Ltd; 1 service area of Hathway; M/s Atria & TCL on All India basis.
- (v)         The reasons for non-compliance with the benchmarks are unexpected increase  in  volume  of  traffic,  Right-of-Way  issues,  frequent  power  failures, fibre and cable cuts, infrastructural issues at customer premise like adherence to the terms and conditions by societies and building related to cabling, wiring and installation etc.
- (vi)        As regards, wireless data services, as per the performance monitoring report for the quarter ending June 2015, all the service providers are meeting the benchmarks for all the quality of service parameters.
- (vii)        Wherever  the  Quality  of  Service  benchmarks  are  not  met  the explanation  of  the  service  providers  is  called  for  and  after  considering  the response of the service provider financial disincentive are imposed.  TRAI has now  made  the  financial  disincentives  more  stringent  in  cases  of  continuous non-compliance with the benchmark.
- (viii)          For  ensuring  quality  of  service,  TRAI  is  closely  monitoring  the performance of service providers against the quality  of  service  benchmarks. TRAI has been pursuing with service providers for improving Quality of Service and in this regard regular interactions are held with the service providers. TRAI has also engaged independent agencies for auditing and assessing the quality of service and surveys are being done regularly through independent agencies to  assess  the  customer  perception  of  service.    The  results  of  the  audit  and assessment of quality of service and surveys are published for the information of stakeholders, which also force the service providers to improve the quality of  service.    For  addressing  Call  drop  issues  which  have  been  a  matter  of concern in the recent times, TRAI has been closely monitoring the action plan of  the service providers in this regard and regular interactions are held with service providers for addressing network problems.

- (c) to(e) (i) National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project was planned by the Government in  the  year  2011  to  connect  all  Gram  Panchayats  (approx.  2.5 Lakh) in the country through Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) utilizing existing fibers of    Public  Sector  Undertakings  (PSUs)  viz.  Bharat  Sanchar  Nigam  Limited (BSNL),  Power  Grid  Corporation  of  India  Limited  (PGCIL)  and  RailTel  and laying  incremental  fiber  wherever  necessary  to  bridge  the  connectivity  gap between  Gram  Panchayats  (GPs)  and  Blocks  for providing  broadband connectivity.  Under  this  project,  at  least  100  Mbps  bandwidth  was  to  be provided in all the estimated 2,50,000 GPs for utilization by all categories of service providers on non-discriminatory basis including Internet Service Providers. Project was to be executed in the phases i.e. Phase-I 1,00,000 GPs by  31.03.2015, Phase-II  another 1,00,000 GPs by 31.03.2016 and Phase-III remaining 50,000 GPs by 31.12.2016.

(ii) State-wise status of NOFN project as on 22.11.2015, is given in the Statement at Annexure-I.

- (iii)             In  order  to  review  the  strategy  and  approach  towards  speedy implementation  of  National  Optical  Fibre  Network,  Government  of  India constituted a Committee on 14 th January, 2015. The Committee submitted its report on 31 st March, 2015. The Committee, inter-alia, recommended that the project be renamed as BharatNet to reflect the national aspiration to establish a  highly  scalable  network  infrastructure  accessible  on  a  non-discriminatory basis to realize the vision of Digital India, in partnership with the States and the private sector.
- (iv)             One  of  the  mandates  of  this  Committee  was  to  come  up  with solutions that could ensure project completion by December 2016. Committee gave considerable thought  to this issue and was of the opinion that adherence to  the  timeline  of  December,  2016,  either  in  the  existing  framework  or  the revised  framework  suggested  by  the  Committee,  may  not  be  feasible.  The Committee in its report, inter-alia, suggested a revised timeline upto December 2017.
- (v)             The  Committee  has  also  recommended  that  Wi-Fi  infrastructure may be provided by Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL)/State Special Purpose  Vehicle  (SPV)  through  public  investment  and  the  Wi-Fi  services delivery  could  be  through  any  licensed  service  providers.  Wi-Fi  for  each resident of the GP should be provided by the identified Wi-Fi services Provider for which wholesale bandwidth may be made available by BBNL/State SPV.

(vi)             The Committee has recommended two other alternative models for project management and implementation in comparison to the existing CPSU driven model namely, the State Government -led model and Private Sectorled model.

(vii)            Report of the Committee is under examination in the Department of Telecommunications.

Annexure-I State wise status of NOFN (BharatNet) as on  22.11.2015

| S#    | States/ UTs        | No. of Gram Panchayats (GPs)- Phase I   | Pipe laid (kms)   | Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) Laid (in kms)   | No. of GPs where OFC laid   |
|-------|--------------------|-----------------------------------------|-------------------|-------------------------------------------|-----------------------------|
| 1.    | Jammu & Kashmir    | 624                                     | 55                | 49                                        | 32                          |
| 2.    | Himachal Pradesh   | 283                                     | 186               | 44                                        | 14                          |
| 3.    | Punjab             | 6128                                    | 3686              | 2538                                      | 1557                        |
| 4.    | Haryana            | 6090                                    | 4305              | 3640                                      | 2358                        |
| 5.    | Rajasthan          | 6967                                    | 10101             | 8487                                      | 2701                        |
| 6.    | Chandigarh         | 12                                      | 17                | 19                                        | 12                          |
| 7.    | Uttarakhand        | 1767                                    | 1022              | 753                                       | 505                         |
| 8.    | UP (West)          | 8040                                    | 6707              | 3342                                      | 1431                        |
| 9.    | UP (East)          | 14474                                   | 11987             | 8288                                      | 3741                        |
| 10.   | Bihar              | 5202                                    | 5367              | 4411                                      | 1661                        |
| 11.   | West Bengal        | 2713                                    | 1746              | 1553                                      | 565                         |
| 12.   | Sikkim             | 0                                       | 0                 | 0                                         | 0                           |
| 13.   | Assam              | 1013                                    | 1585              | 1171                                      | 447                         |
| 14.   | Jharkhand          | 1388                                    | 2434              | 1517                                      | 538                         |
| 15.   | Odisha             | 3388                                    | 3628              | 2499                                      | 1135                        |
| 16.   | Andaman & Nicobar  | 69                                      | 0                 | 0                                         | 0                           |
| 17.   | Arunachal Pradesh  | 256                                     | 128               | 15                                        | 0                           |
| 18.   | Nagaland           | 743                                     | 992               | 412                                       | 99                          |
| 19.   | Manipur            | 24                                      | 71                | 73                                        | 24                          |
| 20.   | Meghalaya          | 638                                     | 570               | 203                                       | 42                          |
| 21.   | Tripura            | 1021                                    | 1178              | 775                                       | 334                         |
| 22.   | Mizoram            | 163                                     | 138               | 0                                         | 0                           |
| 23.   | Madhya Pradesh     | 10516                                   | 14454             | 10524                                     | 3426                        |
| 24.   | Chhattishgarh      | 2110                                    | 3843              | 3282                                      | 1010                        |
| 25.   | Gujarat            | 5735                                    | 4578              | 2747                                      | 1229                        |
| 26.   | Maharashtra        | 12055                                   | 8341              | 5710                                      | 2498                        |
| 27.   | Daman & Diu        | 0                                       | 0                 | 0                                         | 0                           |
| 28.   | Dadra &NagarHaveli | 0                                       | 0                 | 0                                         | 0                           |
| 29.   | Karanataka         | 5599                                    | 9169              | 8686                                      | 4033                        |
| 30.   | Andhra Pradesh     | 0                                       | 1913              | 19                                        | 0                           |
| 31.   | Telengana          | 2097                                    | 3579              | 2278                                      | 1015                        |
| 32.   | Tamil Nadu         | 0                                       | 0                 | 0                                         | 0                           |
| 33.   | Kerala             | 977                                     | 742               | 806                                       | 1129                        |
| 34.   | Pudducherry        | 98                                      | 82                | 92                                        | 98                          |
| 35.   | Lakshadweep        | 10                                      | 0                 | 0                                         | 0                           |
| 36.   | Goa*               | -                                       | -                 | -                                         | -                           |
| Grand | Total              | 100200                                  | 102604            | 73933                                     | 31634                       |

*All the GPs of Goa are already connected with Optical Fibre.

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