The world’s largest rural broadband connectivity project through optical fibre cable: Idukki first district – Kerala

Idukki becomes first district in India to get high-speed rural broadband connectivity

Down To Earth, M Suchitra, Tuesday 13 January 2015 | To read the full article, click here >>

‘Our vision is to transform our country into a knowledge economy,’ communication minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said while inaugurating the network

National Optic Fibre Network will connect all 250,000 gram panchayats of India by 2016

India’s first high-speed rural broadband network, the National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN), was commissioned in Kerala’s Idukki district on Monday. With this, the district, which has a large tribal and rural population, has become the country’s first district to have all its village panchayats connected to NOFN, the world’s largest rural broadband connectivity project through optical fibre cable.

NOFN is the only telecom project of its kind in the country in terms of volume of work, geographical spread of work, reach, quantity of optical fibre cable laying involved and costs. The Rs 30,000 crore NOFN project, which involves laying of about 600,000 km of optical fiber cable, is a part of Central government’s Digital India initiative. The project seeks to link all the 250,000 gram panchayats in the country, located in 6,600 blocks in 631 districts through optical fibre network, providing high-speed Internet connectivity with a minimum bandwidth of 100 megabits per second (Mbps).

“Our country is entering into a new era of digital empowerment. […] Our vision is to transform our country into a knowledge economy,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister of Communication and Information & Technology, who launched the programme in Thiruvananthapuram by receiving the first-ever mobile call from Edamalakkudy, a remote tribal gram panchayat in Idukki. This tribal gram panchayat is 34 km away from the nearest town and has no road connectivity, electricity or piped water. This settlement was connected to NOFN through VSAT media which has also provided them with voice connectivity. All the 52 other gram panchayats in the district have been comnnected by optical fibre cables. […]

NOFN will ensure high-speed broadband connectivity to all the gram panchayats. This is to be achieved by utilising the existing optical fibre network of public sector companies and extending it to village panchayats.

“NOFN is expected to open up new avenues for access service providers like mobile operators, cable TV operators to launch next generation services,” says Sundararajan. The project has the potential to transform governance, information and technology, education, health, environment, entertainment, business, agriculture and development planning through high speed Internet connectivity, and will also create local employment, says she. […]