In a move to drive the uptake of rural telephony services, the Trai proposed a mechanism to provide funds from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to operators who rollout their services in the rural part of the country.

Highlighting the fact that gap between telecom penetration in urban (72.47 %) and rural (12.72 %) areas has only widened over the past years, Trai called for measures to address this issue. The regulator said that the rural segment as a group comprised of a $ 100 billion consumer spending group thereby forming the largest buyers in the country and contributing significantly to the country’s GDP.

Trai also drew attention to the disturbing fact that financial resources from the USOF lay unutilized. Trai said of the Rs 20,000 crore collected under USOF only about Rs 6,700 crore have been utilized.

Trai said that the process of appointing an operator to rollout services in rural areas should be done away with as it consumes time. It called for an optical fibre network to be rolled out in rural areas. IT also expressed its displeasure at the slow pace of work for the first phase of the rural telephony project.