At farm on Fiber – How BSNL and local micro business made my dream come true .

 

      Wherever we go around the world, there is always a belonging to our home where we grow up. Especially for a kid like me grown up in rural village in Tamilnadu, in a job that can be done remotely – The only challenge is the infrastructure of 21st century – high speed Internet. Similar to other infrastructure in the past century like roads, electricity , water etc, the new essential service for 21st century in vilages will not be possible with private players. Even with govt’s initiative for past 2 decades , the goal is to reach just 2.5 out of 5 lakh revenue villages (http://bbnl.nic.in/index1.aspx?lsid=48&lev=2&lid=45&langid=1) with a broadband. Post COVID, As many of the global population without wired broadband, I was manging with 4G and 3G wireless network with failovers and backups :) . I used SIMs of 4 network provides, 2 of them cover my rural home on farm and only one covers well and other is spotty. With manging for 3 months, I got a blessing news that, I can get a broadband thanks to the initiative by BSNL partnering with local cable operators. 

 

        I dialed to my local friend who operating local cable television line and spent a huge sum for digital conversion 2 years back and installed fiber cables for 50 Kms covering 15 small villages of 2 revenue villages for meager 200 subscribers. He eagerly helped me to get me internet. He got the fiber equipments partnering with a another cable operator from nearby town, to pass internet from BSNL to my home. Whoa ! Now I am on fiber at my farm ! Hey Newyorkers – I am just 250 msec away from you !! aren’t I ? 

 

    With so much of happiness with a reliable wired internet, which will never gonna happen with private players, I started thinking privatization to large corporations will not enable rural infrastructure. Private being private, they want to maximize profit, minimize loss , or the famous words from 2008, privatizing profits and publicizing loss . Rural infra has been provided by the state owned operators as private players do not have any incentive to expand. BSNL provided our home with a telephone connectivity when the number was in 2 digits. BSNL covers the most of India and the only provider in rural and remote areas. Local micro businesses like my cable operator continues to invest for meager incentive just because the regulation forces them and to just be afloat in business. Then a big news came on Tamilnadu state govt floating tender to connect all 12500 revenue villages with a fiber connectivity. While I do not have their technical plan, at best they will do is just provide a internet connectivity to revenue village’s office or provide fiber end to revenue village. It takes another investment to lay fiber cable anywhere between 20-50 kilometers depend on the number of villages and distance apart. Without a thoughtful planning and policy, the huge money spent (2000 crores) will be half success. The govt should get the fiber to every village in the state and create a platform with optical line terminals where local operators in village provide service to users in village.