Broadband: BSNL mulls Trai request

Telecom regulator on Saturday again asked BSNL to open up its last mile connectivity to private operators for broadband usage and said that instead of losing the value of such a huge network, it was best to work jointly to fully leverage the potential.

The public sector undertaking responded by saying it will reconsider the issue seriously.

The request made by TRAI chairman Pradip Baijal at an international communication and computing conference in Kanpur at the IIT campus was directed at BSNL CMD A K Sinha, who also attended the conference.

"I plead with BSNL to unbundle the last mile of copper to fully leverage the potential of its huge network. I also request BSNL to open up the fibre last mile exchange as most of this cannot be lit by BSNL again due to huge costs involved and would go waste", Baijal said.

Baijal said unbundling would help the "broadband industry grow by allowing last mile connectivity to private players".

The department of telecom has already turned down this proposal of TRAI earlier due to BSNL's strong opposition in the broadband policy announced last year.

Baijal said the value of last mile might be reduced to 'trash' at some point time, giving the example of "British Telecom when the government there realised it and opened up".

The worldwide last-mile opening up by the incumbent has been a controversial issue.

Replying to Baijal, Sinha said BSNL would "first like to aggressively use our own last mile", adding that "how much of that 42 million last mile is suitable for broadband connection is also doubtful".

"Our past experience has shown that if we open up our last mile to the private players for broadband, they might use it for telecom purposes and lure away our customers", Sinha said.

But Sinha assured Baijal that BSNL might seriously think of opening up of last mile again. "Despite our own reasons, if the regulator has requested again, we have to think about it seriously again", Sinha said.

BSNL and MTNL currently have 42 million fixed line connections and BSNL alone has 30,000 fibre exchanges.