India is one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world. However, the country's internet penetration hasn't been able to keep up, with the number of broadband connections being underwhelming, to say the least. Since faster connections can make way for better banking, education, and healthcare services, the Union Cabinet's recently approved National Telecom Policy (NTP) has a new goal — Broadband For All. To implement its objective, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has grand plans of setting up a National Broadband Network that will cost around Rs 60,000 crore. TRAI estimates that this will help it achieve 16 crore broadband connections by 2014.



If everything goes according to plan (which is highly unlikely), people in towns and villages will have access to a minimum download speed of 2 Mbps through wired connections by 2014. For metros, connection speeds are expected to be in the 10 Mbps range. Although this sounds promising, let's just hope that it will materialise sans a huge broadband scam. High hopes, indeed.

TAGS: Telecom, Government, Internet, ck