The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on April 25, 2023, issued a notification regarding the 'Recommendations for Improving Telecom Coverage and Backhaul Infrastructure in far-flung areas of Ladakh'
The Salient features of the recommendations are as follows namely: -
• It states that 3 villages in Ladakh that do not have any coverage and were not included in the ongoing schemes will be included under the 'Saturation of 4G mobile services project.
• It states that 19 villages in Ladakh that neither have 4G coverage shall be included in the ongoing schemes for providing 4G coverage. The CAPEX and OPEX expenditure to be incurred for upgrading the existing non-4 G-based cellular mobile infrastructure at these 19 villages should be funded by Government through USOF, In 12 out of these 19 villages, the Authority recommends that the VSAT connectivity provided under BharatNet can also double as backhaul for 4G connectivity. In the remaining 7 uncovered villages, VSAT connectivity on a shared basis should be considered till connectivity on OFC media is extended to these villages
• It states that All operating TSPs in UT of Ladakh must provide fair and non-discriminatory access to their spare backhaul transmission media resource capacity via lease/ rent or on mutually agreeable terms and conditions, to other TSP/ ISP. A committee of the TERM field unit of J&K and representatives of all TSPs should be formed at the earliest to help with resource pooling across TSPs.
• A second-level Committee at the DoT headquarters should be formed to periodically review and resolve any impediment being experienced by any affected entity
• It also recommended that the charges paid by the lessee to any lessor TSP for the use of spare backhaul media transmission resource capacity should be reduced from the Gross Revenues of the lessor to arrive at Applicable Gross Revenue.
• It has recommended improving telecom connectivity/ infrastructure in far-flung areas of Himachal Pradesh, many of which are valid for Ladakh, and further Recommended providing electricity to telecom sites as a priority at Utility/Industrial tariff, waiving off last mile installation charges for extending the electric connection to telecom sites, etc should be made applicable to Ladakh
• It states that the DoT should do a site-wise analysis of all such sites that are being run by BSNL or any other TSP on VSAT in remote and hilly areas in Ladakh. For all such sites that are being run to serve strategic or service delivery needs of the Government, the entire operational costs of running these sites should be borne by the Government.
The recommendations have been placed on TRAI's website www.trai.gov.in. For clarification/ information, if any, Shri Sanjeev Kumar Sharma, Advisor (Broadband and Policy Analysis/ Network Spectrum 86 Licensing-I), may be contacted at Telephone Number +91-11-23236119 or email at [email protected].
[Press Release No. 36/2023]
