Over 6,000 villages without mobile connectivity in northeast: TRAI

Guwahati: Though the Centre has taken several initiatives to improve telecom connectivity in the northeast, there is still a lack of high-speed mobile-based internet and fixed broadband connectivity, mainly due to the inadequate transmission bandwidth, says the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

One glaring revelation was that 1,328 mobile sites were running on diesel generator sets in these states as of December 2022. “Though most of the villages in NE states now have power connectivity, owing to poor quality of commercial power supply available in these areas augmented with erratic power outages and high capital expenditure with inordinate processing delay involved in extending last mile power connectivity to telecom sites in such remote and hilly regions, sites are commissioned using DG sets,” Telecom Regulatory Authority of India( TRAI) said in its report on “Improving Telecom Infrastructure in Northeastern States of India.”

“Telecom service providers are facing major problems in maintaining transportation of diesel at these sites located at remote and hilly areas round the year due to poor road condition as well as higher transportation cost. This further increases the operating expenditure for these sites. To add to these, during instances of disturbances, strikes/bandhs, the supply of diesel to mobile tower sites gets disturbed, affecting the uptime. In some states like Sikkim, local people have imposed restrictions on the running of DG sets during night hours. This leads to disruption of telecom services during night hours,” the report said.