Telecom Commission, on Wednesday allowed Net neutrality by backing the principles of a free and open internet. Commission also approved the new telecom policy which would get investments of over $100 billion by 2022.
“The Telecom Commission has approved Net neutrality as recommended by Trai except some critical services that will be kept out of its purview,” telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan told The Telegraph.
The new telecom policy called National Digital Communications Policy will aim at creating jobs, providing broadband connectivity to every citizen with a speed of 50 MB per second and getting investments of more than $100 billion into India by 2022.
“Provide universal broadband coverage at 50 Mbps to every citizen. Provide 1 Gbps connectivity to all gram panchayats of India by 2020 and 10 Gbps by 2022,” the draft said.
Around 12.5 lakh Wifi hotspots in all gram panchayats with viability gap funding of around Rs 6,000 crore will be installed by December, said an official.
The draft will also address the problem of debt in telecom sector which is around Rs 8 lakh crore by reviewing license fees, universal service obligation fund levy and spectrum use charges.
Due to the entry to newcomer Reliance Jio, the revenue and profit of other operators have come under pressure and huge competition leading to speedy consolidation through mergers, acquisitions and exists in the sector.
