In an initiative that would take the Broadband Internet service offering in rural areas to a new level, India’s National Telecom Backbone and the leading telecom service provider, BSNL today announced that it will now offer the cheapest Broadband connectivity to rural and remote areas in the state of Himachal Pradesh.
BSNL will provide Broadband internet services at just Rs.99 per month on subsidized wireline connection that is to be supported by Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) in rural areas.
According to an agreement between Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and BSNL, it would provide about 28,000 rural wireline exchanges under USOF support. BSNL would offer two special USOF Broadband tariff plans of 512KBPS spped with lowest montly rent of Rs.99 with FREE Data usage of 400MB and Rs.150 with FREE Data Usage of 1GB throughout the validity period of the agreement, which is eight years.
Besides these two packages BSNL also provides other tariff packages as well. At each exchange a maximum of 32 connections (25 individuals, 6 Government Institutional and one kiosk) is to be subsidized. DoT would provide subsidy upto Rs 850/- for both individual and Government Institutional connections for the first 31 connections from the USOF. The fund would also provide computer subsidy upto Rs 4500/- and would be available for the 31 connections.
