Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) made collaboration with the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to deploy 25,000 Wifi Hotspots in rural areas in next six months. Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is signed in regards to this matter under the presence of Communications Minister Manoj Sinha.
The setting up of this 25,000 Wifi hotspots will be funded from the USO Fund while the government will provide full capital expenditure and operational expenditure(OPEX) support of Rs 940 crore for the project.
BSNL officially stated the plan and said, “The OPEX support of 100 percent shall be provided by USOF for the first year and thereafter 75 percent in the second year, 50 percent support in the third year of operation shall be extended to BSNL”.
Wifi hotspots will be provided with reliable internet services through robust fiber backhaul of the BSNL and Gigabit Passive Optical Network connectivity being extended through BharatNet Project.