Building up Infrastructure

It is important that the telecom and broadband infrastructure is future ready and future proof. Though, very little can actually be done to make the infrastructure future proof in actual terms; however, planning and designing can be taken in a way where the infrastructure is properly road-mapped to make it receptive to changes and upgrades in future. The infrastructure has to be fluid in nature so that it can absorb and integrate the future changes and evolutions of technology.

While doing so, the focus has to be on the cities as well as villages. Private entities will be driven by business case and opportunities which are explicitly more and visible in the urban space and hence the infrastructure with multiple options will get evolved in the urban areas through private parties’ interven- tions. However, the challenge will be of deploying the infrastructure in the rural areas where the latent opportunity could be of greater magnitude, but the nature of opportunity cannot excite the private entities to push for a business case.

So, where in case of urban areas, possibly, government interventions at policy and regulatory levels would push the uptake of Broadband with private collaboration, there is a need of policy+ focus to effectuate and actuate the Broadband infrastructure and services in the rural areas.

Akin to spectrum, government must lay its own fiber network and lease it out to private entities so that there is equal and fair access to infrastructure even to smaller players who may wish to focus within limited geographies, especially rural areas.

All Broadband networks and deployments must be interoperable. Creating isolated networks will not only deprive leveraging for multiple scenarios but also complicate the evolution towards connected and one India.

Using sub Gigahertz (GHz) frequency bands for strengthening the backhaul must be explored and encouraged. For instance, TV White Space could be delicensed and used for Wi-Fi backhaul development.

To make the infrastructure development for Broadband sustainable and viable for government, moderate rate of return can be worked out by devising leasing and renting plans for the private and other infrastructure using entities.

The norms for infrastructure laying,