Digital India fails to impact growth of broadband subscribers

NEW DELHI: At a time when the government is working on programmes like Digital India, there has been an increase of a meager 1.88 per cent in the number of broadband subscribers between February and March this year.
According to a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report, the number rose from 97.37 million at the end of February to 99.20 million.

As in previous months, the largest increase was in the mobile devices users (phones and dongles) segment from 81.48 million to 83.24 million, showing an increase of 2.17 per cent.

BSNL Extends Its Free Call Scheme

KOCHI: The BSNL on Friday informed that its unlimited free calling scheme for landline users has been extended to all ‘Combo Plans’, with effect from June 1.   The scheme that started on May 1, for calls made between  9 pm and 7 am, was not applicable for all plans.

The Ernakulam SSA has installed an IVRS facility - with toll-free number 18004251176 - for subscribers to check whether the new scheme is applicable for their landlines, or not.

Roadmap for future spectrum auctions will be disclosed in advance: Government

The government will disclose in advance the roadmap for spectrum auction in future, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said today.

“First and foremost message which I want to convey to the industry here today is that spectrum auction in future should also be conducted in a fair, reasonable and timely manner so that the industry does not have any cause for uncertainty and ambiguity … the roadmap will be well disclosed to you in advance so you can prepare yourself,” Prasad said during a Digital Bharat event organised by Ficci.

Scrap the USO fund : But first get back the money diverted from it

Given how just R24,900 crore of the R58,600 crore collected by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) between FY02 and FY14 has been disbursed to telecom operators, it is time to take a serious call on its future. Indeed, even this number is not representative since around R6,950 crore of this was reimbursement of licence fee and spectrum charges to BSNL which should not strictly have been made from the USOF. When it was started, the USOF had a noble objective, to use part of the revenues of telcos in urban areas to rollout networks and services in rural areas.