ISRO, BSNL to offer Internet in villages

Indian Space Research Organisation and BSNL have begun an ambitious project using India's communication satellites to provide Internet access for thousands of villages in the country.

"The kind of connectivity required for inaccessible rural areas can be provided only by satellites, which then can be networked in a local area through wireless," ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said.

He said the Internet bandwidth can be beamed through ISRO's communication satellites and transmitted within a village through wireless network.

Nair said the broadband network being created by BSNL and other telecom operators, is to connect cities and small towns, but there are over 6.95 lakh villages which need connectivity and are not connected to the optic fibre loop being used for offering broadband in the country.

He said costs could be economical to provide Internet access through satellite to villages in mountainous and inaccessible places.

"Costs will be competitive when you have to go to mountains and unreachable places, because laying of optic fibre cable will be very expensive," Nair said.