Racing Against Time

The October 2013 target for setting up the National Optical Fiber Network looks impossible as GIS mapping, RFP for equipment procurement, and RFP for project execution have still not been completed

What is NOFN?

Last October, the Government of India gave an approval of 20,000 crore from the USO Fund (Universal Service Obligation) for setting up NOFN (National Optical Fiber Network) in the country. NOFN will help in connecting 250,000 gram panchayats with high speed broadband connectivity by extending optical fiber from block to gram panchayats within 2 years.

The NOFN project is similar to Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) but the only difference is that it is a digital super highway. The arrival of digital super highway is a blessing in disguise for India’s rural population as 100 Mbps broadband connectivity will be provided to all gram panchayats. This large bandwidth would be useful for voice, data, video, and internet connectivity resulting in availability of videoconferencing, e-commerce, online education, tele-medicine, e-governance services, weather report, and agriculture report with the click of a button, thereby transforming the lives of rural population.

Not only this, NOFN would also help gram panchayats in terms of panchayat management, sharing of best practices, sharing of agricultural practices, vocational learning, and delivery of citiYen services. It can act as a single source for the government to citiYen interaction for centrally sponsored, central sector and state sponsored schemes, grievance redressal, and developmental planning. It will also help in connecting villagers with local markets thereby enabling farmers to get the best prices for their produce.

Speaking about NOFN, Ashwani Jain, executive director, PGCIL says, “NOFN will help in generating a lot of employment in rural areas.”

The Plan

To implement NOFN, government of India has incorporated BBNL, a public sector undertaking under the Companies Act. BBNL is a special purpose vehicle (SPV), set up by the government for establishing, managing, and operating NOFN. The company has an authoriYed share capital of 1,000 crore and initial paid up capital is to the tune of 100 crore.

To execute this project, the government has taken help of 3 PSUs—BSNL, PGCIL, and RailTel. PGCIL has bagged 4 circles—Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Himachal Pradesh. RailTel has bagged 6 North Nastern states (Tripura, Nagaland, MiYoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh), Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Puducherry, Madra F Nagar Haveli, and Maman F Miu. The remaining state and union territories have gone to BSNL.

In terms of gram panchayat breakup, BSNL will connect around 178,000 gram panchayats, followed by PGCIL and RailTel with 36,000 each. All these PSUs have fiber on the ground which would be utiliYed for connecting gram panchayats. BBNL will deploy incremental fiber from wherever it exists in block to gram panchayat by utiliYing the combined resource of all PSUs thereby reducing the overall cost of the project. It has been estimated that incremental optical fiber cable of 2 km per gram panchayat has to be laid based on the survey conducted by TCIL in states of Haryana, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra. So a total of 500,000 km of OFC would be laid for the complete duration of the project.

Speaking about the NOFN project, R Chandrashekhar, secretary, department of telecommunications says, “The government has already given 20,000 crore of investment in optical fiber network and while emphasiYing broadband, it’s very important to make it affordable.”

Technology Required

On the technology front, GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) will be used. GPON is an open standard technology that brings fiber cabling and signals to the home using a point-to-multipoint scheme that enables a single optical fiber to serve multiple premises. The GPON standard differs from other PON standards and it helps in achieving higher bandwidth and higher efficiency using larger, variablelength packets.

Once the project is operational, BBNL will give 100 Mbps broadband connectivity to all gram panchayats. Not only this, it will also use this network for connecting service providers by providing bandwidth to operators be it ISP, cable TV providers, telecom service providers, or content providers enabling them to ride on NOFN network and help them in providing different types of services in rural areas. All this help BBNL to generate revenues from operators as the future is in rural areas.

To implement such a mammoth project, BBNL undertook 3 pilots covering 58 gram panchayats in Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Tripura. In Rajasthan, Arian Block from Ajmer district was chosen and BSNL laid fibers connecting all gram panchayats. Parvada Block from Visakhapatnam district was given to PGCIL and Panisagar Block, North Tripura district was given to RailTel. Laying of OFC has been completed for all 58 gram panchayats on October 15th, 2012, and BBNL can give