Optical fibre costly to deploy, tough to maintain: DoT

The department of telecommunication has expressed reservation about going the optic fibre cable route, which suggested by a government panel for connecting 2,50,000 villages panchayats through high speed broadband services.

According to minutes of a meeting held to discuss the panel recommendations, additional secretary in DoT pointed out that though OFC ensures sufficient bandwidth it has high cost of laying the cable (Rs 3,25,000 per kilometre), long time lag and is difficult to maintain.

He added that meeting the objective is possible through simple microwave communication as well, which is easier to lay, quick to roll out and costs less.

Kumar said in the meeting that 'serious issues get involved if one chooses to lay OFC up to villages on various reasons -- slow speed of deployment, higher possibility of mechanical abrasions of OFC, inability of OFC to intelligently allocate bandwidth'.