K'taka gets Rs 400 cr BSNL investment

“BSNL will connect 460 GPS in Karnataka by the end of the first quarter of the next year. This is established through high-speed broadband and FTTH (fibre-to-the-home). I do hope that it will help in the faster connectivity,” said Nagaraju. Nagaraju said Karnataka lost its opportunity to become the first fully-fiberised state in the country due to its sheer size. 

“Kerala has achieved this status because it has only 950 gram panchayats. But Karnataka is the largest fibre connected state in the country,” he said. The Bharat Net project, which aims to deploy high-speed optical fibre cable network across rural areas of the country, has now reached 59,945 gram panchayats, spanning a distance of 1,37,515 km as of November 2016.

Bharat Net, earlier known as National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) aims to cover a total of 2.5 lakh gram panchayats in the country. It is funded under the Universal Services Obligation Fund set up by the government in 2002 for providing telecommunications services in rural areas at subsided rates. BSNL has constituted Bharat Broadband Network to implement the project.  

MoU with KEONICSBSNL and Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation (KEONICS) have signed an MoU for connecting the rural villages, as part of the Bharat Net project. As per the MoU, Nagaraju said KEONICS will provide 30,000 connections in the rural areas of Karnataka. “BSNL agreed to share 40% of revenues with KEONICS. This will provide the high-speed internet connectivity to rural areas,” he said.