Honest 836 Report post Posted July 25, 2008 Govt waives license fee on rural fixed line, to lose Rs 200cr 24 Jul, 2008, 1508 hrs IST, PTI NEW DELHI: Department of telecom has waived the license fee on rural landlines to promote use of telephone in rural areas, where the usage of telecom services remain low, a move which will make the Government lose about Rs 200 crore revenue per year. The decision is also intended to give a boost to e-governance through provision of more broadband services in villages, thus reducing the digital divide, an official statement said here. The Telecom Commission, in its latest meeting took this decision. The waiver will amount to Rs 200 crores per year, it said. The Commission also decided to reduce the levy towards the Universal Service Obligation (USO) from the present five per cent to three per cent of the Adjusted Ground Revenue (AGR) in the case of those telecom service providers, who have already covered more than 95 per cent of rural areas. The Universal Service Obligation Fund has been set up to create infrastructure support in rural and remote areas for providing telecommunications service to people at affordable and reasonable prices. The latest decisions of the Telecom Commission are in line with the Government's policy to promote rural telephony and accessibility of telephone in remote areas. The aim is to achieve rural teledensity of 25 per cent by means of 200 million rural connections at the end of the 11th Plan. The rural teledensity stood at 8 per cent as on December 31, 2007. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Honest 836 Report post Posted December 16, 2008 TRAI moots steps to push rural telephony Economic Times l 17 Dec l New Delhi In a bid to improve rural telephony, telecom regulator TRAI on Tuesday proposed that all operators who offer communication services in rural India and share their infrastructure with other players be given financial support from the telecom development fund. At present, all telcos pay 5% of their annual revenues towards this fund—Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). As of September 2008, the urban teledensity (number of telephones per 100 persons) was 72.47% against rural teledensity of only around 12.72%. TRAI also pointed out that during the last two decades, though several attempts have been made to extend the benefits of the telecom revolution to rural masses, the gap between urban and rural teledensity has only widened. The regulator has, therefore, called for several measures to improve rural telephony, and said: “India’s rural majority today accounts for more than $100 billion in consumer spending i.e. the largest buyers as a group in the country and contributing significantly to India’s GDP. Cellphone makers are eyeing the rural markets to push growth beyond the present 7 to 9 million new mobile connections every month. Broadly, we can say that if a country has a one per cent higher mobile phone subscription rate than another, its GDP per capita will be about $200 higher.” TRAI’s proposals come as a large chunk of this money available in the USOF remains unutilised. For instance, as of last year, over Rs 20,000 crore has been collected from telcos towards the USOF, but only a little over Rs 6,700 crore has been utilised for improving rural telephony. TRAI has also called for setting up of separate facility based operator funded by the USOF for providing the fiber connectivity. “The fibre laid should be given free of cost for next five years to any operator who provides services in the villages,” TRAI said. Currently, telcos shy away from offering bundled handsets at subsidised rates to their customers. This is because the original cost of the handset is included in their annual gross revenues (AGR) and they are subjected to a revenue share in this component also. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
