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India bandwidth capacity to grow this year

India is on course to increase bandwidth this year to allow most areas in the country access to broadband services, a senior government official said on Friday.

"We are doing our best to achieve the targeted 100,000 route km of fibre this year in addition to 185,000 route km which already exists," Telecom Commission chairman Shyamal Ghosh told a business seminar.

"With this much of fibre in place, one should be able to provide broadband access in most areas."

Low bandwidth availability has dogged India's booming software sector and resulted in creaky Internet connections. Industry experts feel the problem could get worse as the Internet-based economy grows in the country.

Ghosh said the government was working towards improving bandwidth availability across the country.

He said the state-run monopoly overseas telephone carrier, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, had acquired one-gigabit (GB) bandwidth capacity and had access to another 13 GB bandwidth, which would enable it to offer bandwidth on demand.

State-run national long distance telephony provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) had also taken up projects to boost bandwidth availability and would provide 2.5 GB of bandwidth in 155 cities by the end of the year, Ghosh said.

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