In order to transform the entire country into an always-connected society,the government has decided to recognise telecom and broadband connectivity as a basic necessity,like education and health,in the draft New Telecom Policy (NTP),2011. According to telecom minister Kapil Sibal,India will have 175 million broadband subscribers by 2015 and 600 million by 2010 at a minimum 2 mega bytes per second (MBps) download speed. In order to achieve that,the proposed draft policy talks about encouraging fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology by independent infrastructure providers that will help transform cities and towns into an always-connected society. Also,there will be a revision of the existing broadband download speed of 256 KBps to 512 KBps,and subsequently,to 2 MBps by 2015,and higher speeds of at least 100 MBps thereafter,Sibal said. In order to achieve a 100 per cent broadband connectivity for all Indians,the draft NTP 2011 talks about optimal utilisation of spectrum and reduction in operational costs,especially in the rural areas. The use of low power and renewable energy solutions will be promoted to reduce the operational costs and achieve sustainability in the long run, the draft policy said. The government also proposed to make available the unlicensed spectrum for the proliferation of wireless broadband services. There will also be a back haul of spectrum below 12 Giga hertz prime band so as to ensure the availability of spectrum to meet current and future demand. FE
