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| Major Events Vol. 3 Issue No. 33 | August 16-31, 2007 |
Quantum jump in NE tele-density The North Eastern region is catching up very fast in telecom expansion with tele-density increasing from 4.15 per cent to 10.11 per cent between January to July this year against the national increase from 16.83 per cent to 19.86 per cent, reports PTI. As the tele-density of North-East was projected at 14.26 per cent by end of this year, BSNL has declared this year as the ‘Year of Telecom for North-East’, DoNER Minister Manishankar Aiyar told newsmen after the conclusion of a two-day 7th North Eastern Council sectoral summit on IT and Telecom. Although the hill states recorded impressive expansion, the tele-density network in Assam, however, was only 2.80 per cent during the period, he said. The region recorded more than four per cent increase in broadband services with 13 towns being provided the service. It would be extended to 87 others by March next year, he said. Stating that pre-paid roaming should be allowed in the region, the meeting decided to take up the problem of pre-paid mobile service customers not getting access from outside the North-East with the Union Home and Defence Ministries. The meeting also insisted that the Centre should work towards a ‘One India Plan for Bandwidth’ to lessen the suffering of N-E States as the cost of bandwidth in the region was much higher that the rest of the country. To overcome the problem of laying underground optical fibres in hilly terrain, it was decided that the NEC would fund a master plan to be prepared by Power Grid Corporation to use its network of electric towers and poles for expansion of the overground network cables. As a result of a policy decision, pre-paid mobile phones connections from rest of the country do not work in the North-East and vice-versa. The meeting took a serious note of the security concern for which mobile services were not being allowed in an area within 500 metre of international borders. Consequentially, a large number of people in border areas in the North-East were excluded from the service. The Ministry of DoNER would take up these issues with the ministries concerned. Moreover, the NEC in consultation with BSNL and other service providers would consider having a regional institute for training of technical personnel, preferably at Dimapur, for meeting the requirement of the telecom sector, the meeting resolved Aiyar calls upon IT sector to seize NE potential |
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