Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad   

Staying ‘connected’ at grassroots

Network savvy: The connectivity will provide access at the rural level in time to come

HYDERABAD: Andhra Pradesh will be the first State in the country to provide wi-fi (wireless-fidelity) to its villages through horizontal connectivity.

IT secretary S.K. Joshi has said that after the Aksh broadband connectivity failed to take off, the Government of India has come up with a plan to provide vertical broadband connectivity from State headquarters to district and mandal headquarters.

The State government has proposed to provide horizontal connectivity, in addition to the vertical connectivity. Explaining the concept, Mr. Joshi said on Saturday that all the Government departments and offices would be connected in Hyderabad. Similar connectivity among government departments will be given at district and mandal level too.

While no router is required to provide wi-fi connectivity, he said that the Government was planning to install repeaters – each one costing Rs. 25,000. These repeaters would provide wi-fi connections to village-level offices.

Asked if connections would be given to private customers also in the wi-fi-enabled villages, Mr. Joshi said that the Government did not want to become an Internet service provider. However, it would not be averse to providing broadband connections for an asking, if there was a considerable demand from any village.

He said that estimated expenditure for implementing the project was Rs. 200 crore and it was still at the drawing-board level.The village-level wi-fi would be mainly intended at promoting educational services. Besides, the public services like e-seva could also be extended. Farmers’ education could also become part of it. “Once connected, a lot of services could be taken to the door-step of the common man,” he observed.

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