Taipa Calls For Boosting Telecom Network Capacity

With data traffic in the country surging by at least 30% in the past few days amid most people working from home, the Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (Taipa) on Tuesday said there is a need to quickly enhance telecom network capacity for which the States need to align their policies with the Centre’s Right of Way (RoW) 2016 norms.

“To maintain data usage and smooth functioning of telecom services 24/7, the telecom sector needs critical, robust infrastructure. With more than three years gone, only 16 States out of 36 States/UT’s have broadly aligned their policy with RoW Policy 2016,” said T. R. Dua, director-general, Taipa. The RoW rules, which were notified in November 2016, provide for a framework to give approvals for setting up of telecom towers, laying of fibre cables and settling disputes in a time-bound manner. “COVID-19 outbreak has created an unprecedented crisis across the globe because of which the government has directed public and private employees to work from home.

This has led to over 30% increase in data consumption. Some cities like Hyderabad and Bengaluru have seen cellular network data consumption increase by 70% since the lockdown began,” the association said in a statement.

―The Hindu