Use USO fund to create rural telecom infrastructure

With the auction of 3G expected in January, the availability of increased bandwidth will expand the VAS applications that can be delivered to the customers, foresees Neeraj Jain, Director, Strategic and Commercial Intelligence, Transaction Services, KPMG. “If the aggressive 3G pricing strategy adopted by BSNL/ MTNL is an indication of the extent of affordability of 3G services, 3G has the potential to make a significant impact on mobile telephony and allied areas.” This is because in a country with limited wireline infrastructure, low PC penetration and low Internet connections, the launch of 3G offers the opportunity to bring those services to the masses that are currently the reserve of those with Internet connections, he reasons, during the course of a recent email interview with Business Line. “3G will enable effective delivery of applications like mobile commerce, information-related applications, weather and farm updates, e-governance modules etc. “With the expected focus of the operators on rollout of 3G services in a few urban pockets at best to begin with, the Government should think of ways how 3G can be quickly rolled out in rural areas – efficient usage of the USO fund to create telecom infrastructure may be one such step.” Excerpts from the interview Free broadband throughout the country – will that greatly mitigate the social inequalities and help in development? A study done over thirty countries on correlation of broadband penetration increase and impact on GDP suggested that 10 per cent increase in broadband penetration leads to about $15,000 increase in per capita GDP.