New Delhi, 16 June (IANS). To promote the PM-Vani scheme, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday released the pricing framework for Wi-Fi Service Providers or ‘Public Data Office’ (PDO) for retail broadband connectivity. The purpose of this step is to solve the challenges obstructing the development of public Wi-Fi hotspots.
The Telecom Authority has finalized the Telecom Tariff (71st Amendment) Order, 2025 on tariffs for retail broadband connectivity for PDOs.
The order said, “Every service provider providing Retail Fiber to the Home (FTTH) broadband service will provide all its retail FTTH broadband schemes up to 200 Mbps to the PDOs under the PM-Rani scheme, whose tariff, Retail subscribers applied to the Broad Bandy (capacity) for the Retail Subscribers. Will not done.”
The pricing framework is designed to appropriately balance the interests of all stakeholders by ensuring affordability for small -scale PDOs, as well as service providers have been provided with appropriate compensation for broadband connections.
TRAI said, “The proposed tariff framework takes into account the existing market landscape, the current levels of adopting the PM-Vani service as well as the potential future development. With these ideas, the purpose of framework is to make the systematic, sustainable and inclusive development of public Wi-Fi ecosystem facilitated under PM-Vani initiative.”
The Department of Communications introduced an amendment to the PM-Vani framework on 16 September 2024, which eliminated the need for PDOs to make commercial agreements with TSP for Internet connectivity.
Based on the Amendment of the Department of Telecommunications, the comments of the stakeholders received on the draft TTO (70th Amendment), the Authority issued a revised draft telecom tariff (71st amendment) order on 15 January 2025.
The Telecom Authority said that it has been proposed that this capacity presented by Broadband Tariff (FTTH) service provider for PDOs should not be more than doubled from the tariff applied for the Retail Broadband (FTTH) service for PDOs under the PM-Rani scheme.
-IANS
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