Govt to bring high-speed i-net to NE- Ashwini Vaishnaw

The Government has undertaken the work to provide high speed Internet in the entire North Eastern region.According to the union minister for communications, electronics and ITAshwini Vashnaw efforts to equip every village of northeast with digital telecom connectivity are in progress. "An out-of-the-box experiment was conducted for 10 GB internet connectivity from Coxbazar international landing station (Bangladesh) to Agartala through BSNL. The experiment has been extremely successful and now we will be further extending this," he said. "Scientific survey and GIS mapping are on to identify locations for telecom connectivity in every village," he added.  The Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) had signed an agreement with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) on August 18 for the hiring of 10 Gbps International Bandwidth for Internet Connectivity to Agartala from Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL), Bangladesh via Cox Bazar, Kuakata.

As per the New Telecom Policy – 1999 (NTP’99), a Universal Service Obligation (USO) was created through a ‘Universal Access Levy (UAL)’, which would be a percentage of the revenue earned by the operators under various licenses. The Universal Service Support Policy came into effect on 1st April 2002. The fund  is exclusively for meeting the Universal Service Obligation.