Initiatives taken to improve broadband connectivity in Andaman & Lakshadweep

Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai on Wednesday said that a large number of initiatives have been taken by the Government of India to improve broadband connectivity in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, he talked about two Optical Fibre Cable Projects of the Central government connecting these islands with the Indian mainland. These are the Chennai Andaman Nicobar Islands (COptical Fibre Cable Project and The Kochi Lakshadweep Islands Submarine Optical Fibre Cable Project.

Previously, the two Island Union Territories of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep were connected through satellite bandwidth of about 4.1 Gbps and 1.7 Gbps respectively. Thus, only limited bandwidth was available in these strategically located remote Islands, said Nityanand Rai.

He said that the Chennai Andaman Nicobar Islands (CANI) Optical Fibre Cable Project, which was commissioned in the year 2020 at a cost of about Rs 1,224 Cr, has revolutionised internet connectivity in the UT.

Under this project, a submarine cable was laid from Chennai to Port Blair, and further to seven other islands, covering about 85 per cent of the UT’s population.

As a result of this project, the bandwidth utilisation has increased from 4.1 Gbps to 70.31 Gbps in the Islands. Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) services, which provide high broadband speeds directly to homes and offices, have increased to about 34,500, internet speed has increased from 100 Kbps to up to 300 Mbps and total mobile connections have increased to about 7 lakh from 4.7 lakh in Union Territory, said the Minister

5G services were also launched in the islands, and there are 112 5G Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) at present in the UT. As a result, the Islanders have benefitted significantly through greater access to online Government Citizen (G2C) services, telemedicine, online education, development of tourism, e-commerce, enhanced participation in the digital economy (the number of digital transactions has increased from about 10 lakhs to 2.2 crores) etc.

Rai said that the Kochi Lakshadweep Islands Submarine Optical Fibre Cable Project (KLI Project), with a cost of about Rs 1,072 Cr, has connected the mainland (Kochi) and all the inhabited Islands of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep through submarine cable.

The KLI Project is designed to offer speeds up to 100 Gbps and support 4G as well as 5G networks. Trial traffic has been fed into the network. At present 3,972 FTTH connections have been provided through this network.

The KLI Project is expected to benefit the public significantly through enhanced online access in the fields of education, telemedicine, e-commerce, digital governance, tourism etc, said the Minister. BW Businessworld