The villages across India may not have water or electricity supply, but they'll soon have something that will make the rest of us jealous - 100 Mbps Internet broadband services. Indian government's National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) plans to connect all the Gram Panchayats across the nation with optic fiber cables promising awesome speeds. Telecom Minister, Kapil Sibal informed while replying to a question asked in Rajya Sabha. The network will ensure that each Gram Panchayat will get about 100 Mbps Internet access in the next two years, he said.


The NOFN project is being executed with an investment of about Rs. 20,000 crore and has been financed by Universal Service Obligation Fund. Sibal informed that about 5000 Gram Panchayats are likely to be connected to the central network by the end of this year. He further said that the network will enable service providers to launch broadband Internet and other communication services.

The 100 Mbps networks are still not available in many cities in India. The government's plan looks ambitious and while we think it's a good step in ensuring increased Internet penetration, we wonder how will the Gram Panchayats will utilize the service. Education and video conferencing is all fine - but that needs an ecosystem to be created around it. The Indian Government doesn't seem to have any plans for that yet.

What do you think?

Source: Gram panchayats to get broadband speed of up to 100 mbps: Kapil Sibal - The Economic Times