TRAI to issue White Paper on Broadband by September, says Dr Rahul Khullar

In an event, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman Dr Rahul Khullar has informed that the regulatory authority will come out with a paper on broadband by September end.

“The authority has been working on broadband issues and hopefully we will come out with a paper on broadband maybe by the end of next month,” said Dr Khullar while inaugurating the “Eighth Mobile India Summit: Broadband Highway – Driving India’s Growth Story”, organized by the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

Conceding that India’s progress in terms of broadband has been very limited, Dr Khullar added “Very honestly, our progress has been disappointing.”

Dr Khullar also informed that TRAI will soon come out with a paper on microwave spectrum. “We have already issued a paper on microwave access. Hopefully, by the end of the month you will see something on that too.”

He further said that the Centre should immediately take a decision regarding deployment and auction of 700 megahertz (MHZ).

He also stressed upon the need to reduce the load on telecom system so that it is used for higher data purposes. “Why are we not delicensing more spectrum and in several bands and this is something we have already made recommendations on as far back as 2012 but unfortunately it did not make progress for various reasons.”

Sharing certain numbers, he said, “Of 1.8 lakh kilometres (kms) cable that have been ordered 15,000 have been delivered which is just about 8 per cent, of six lakh kms for ducting actual achievement is about 2,000 kms which is about 0.3 per cent, the optical fibre cable pulled is about 250 kms which is less than 0.05 per cent of the target and all this has been achieved in the past two years.”

He, therefore, stressed on the need for targeted approach to achieve broadband policy objectives.