back to article India forges ahead with fibre-to-the-village

India is readying a plan to connect 250,000 villages to fibre backhaul, announcing winning bids to connect six regions to what will ultimately be a national network. Under the Rs 2,500 crore project – more than $US420 million – the Indian government has set up a body called Bharat Broadband Networks to oversee deliver of the …

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  1. Ole Juul

    Only in India you say?

    Build prices for the contracts range from around $US940 per kilometre to just over $US1,000 per kilometre.

    I wish Canadian Telcos could afford to spend that kind of money on new infrastructure. Where I live, they can however come up with much higher sums to repair old T1 copper, but I guess there's no profit in higher bandwidth here.

  2. Charly
    Angel

    Connectivity = Critical Infrastructure

    Considering knowledge is freely available on the web, and it is a key infrastructure component to modern day trade/commerce, any country that isn't delivering high-speed connectivity to All citizens is failing to provide for their modern education and future success.

    1. sam bo
      FAIL

      Re: Connectivity = Critical Infrastructure

      Yes, we had this argument in Australia too . Facebook does not equal education - which is all the kids are interested in doing with it.

      1. John Hughes
        Mushroom

        Re: Connectivity = Critical Infrastructure

        Then maybe the problem is your kids?

        (Actualy mine spend all there time fragging slovenians.)

  3. Gunda

    There is little or no fibre in the cities, where ISPs cartelize and jack up rates. The state owned telecom operator doesn't allow its fiber to be used to increase competition, nor does it show any particular interest in competing with anyone itself. The fundamental reason this buildout is being done is to earn money as percentages of the contract, rather than any real benefit to villages.

  4. Crisp

    How come India can do this

    But the UK has to faff about with the likes of BT, who, let's face it; would have a hard time stringing a couple of tin cans together.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How come India can do this

      We don't need to faff about with BT, it's just that they're the only ones who'd really do it.

      The majority of the cost of a fibre rollout on that scale is manpower, so in the UK it would cost about the same just to do our tiny island.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gram panchayats

    Nice to see an English language western website spell "Gram panchayat" :)

    But Gram Panchayats does not mean "villages". It would be like saying (in UK), local council are villages. Gram Panchayats are local bodies that represent their villages.

    Gram ==> Village

    Panchayat ==> Local "administrative group" formed of "elected" representatives(in present day they are mostly "elected", but in bygone era they use to be formed of elders and rich people of the local community)

    So the question is, does the Indian government plans to connect only the Gram Panchayat offices or do they plan to connect all the households in a village?

    1. Ole Juul

      Re: Gram panchayats

      I suspect that there is more than language to translate here. The culture and laws are different too. In many western countries you couldn't just "roll out fibre" without running afoul of the incumbents who would require enormous profits. The government certainly wouldn't be allowed to do it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Gram panchayats

      >>So the question is, does the Indian government plans to connect only the Gram Panchayat offices or do they plan to connect all the households in a village?

      The cynic in me thinks they plan to connect various bureaucrats in the middle classes, who were fortunate enough to have been born into the right caste, while the rest will continue to live in filth. What use is fibre connectivity if you're illiterate?

      The non-cynic in me tends to agree with the cynic on this one. India should have bigger priorities than this.

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