Document :

UIT-D SG01 RAPPORTEUR GROUP MEETING  Contribution  57

Titre :

Broadband Internet connectivity in rural and sparsely populated remote areas

Reçu le :

2026-08-31

Source :

ITU-APT Foundation of India (IAFI)

AI/Question :

Q1/1

Réunion :

2026-09-28

Disponibilité :

Réservé aux utilisateurs TIES [UIT-D]

Résumé :

BharatNet is one of the world's largest rural broadband initiatives -designed to connect village blocks with high speed optical fibre infrastructure and service level assurance based operations and maintenance. It results in rapidly narrowing rural-urban digitally divide and nationwide boost in opportunities like e-commerce, digital education, and telehealth. It is an ambitious plan to provide Point of Presence (PoP) at village blocks with optical fibre backhual. Since the remote and sparsely populated areas can be at a distance of a few kms from village blocks, Bharatnet will not solve the problem of rural broadband in India. BharatNet has already connected over 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats (Village blocks) with optical fibre, and PM-WANI has scaled public Wi-Fi to more than 4 lakh hotspots nationally. Yet the remaining unconnected population is concentrated precisely where fibre economics break down: sparsely populated, low-income, high-terrain-difficulty regions off the grid and off the road network. This proposal presents a low-cost, energy-efficient, three-tier wireless architecture - Optical fibre backhaul, IEEE 802.22 Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) mid-haul, and IEEE 802.11ah Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) fronthaul - engineered specifically for the geography and economics that current fibre-led rollout cannot reach affordably. It is a direct technical complement to BharatNet and PM-WANI, not a competing scheme, designed to extend their reach into last-mile terrain using unlicensed and lightly-regulated spectrum already validated by International standards bodies.