Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said Kerala has now become the first and only state in the country to have its internet service.
The announcement came in the wake of the Kerala Fiber Optic Network Ltd, an ambitious IT infrastructure project of the government to make the internet accessible to everyone in the state, receiving the Internet Service Provider (ISP) license from the Department of Telecommunications.
With this, the project envisaged to bridge the digital divide in society and can commence its operations, the CM said.
“Kerala becomes the only state in the country with its internet service. The Kerala Fiber Optic Network Ltd has received the ISP license from @DoT_India. Now, our prestigious #KFON project can kickstart its operations of providing the internet as a basic right to our people,” Mr. Vijayan tweeted.
Kerala becomes the only State in the country with its own internet service. The Kerala Fiber Optic Network Ltd has received the ISP license from @DoT_India. Now, our prestigious #KFON project can kickstart its operations of providing internet as a basic right to our people. pic.twitter.com/stGPI4O1X6
— Pinarayi Vijayan (@pinarayivijayan) July 14, 2022
KFON
KFON had last month shortlisted six internet service providers to provide internet connection to 14,000 Below Poverty Line (BPL) families and 30,000 government offices in Kerala. The State government will be footing this bill as part of its project to provide free internet connections to BPL families.
A total of 100 BPL families in each of the State’s 140 Assembly constituencies are being identified in the first phase through the respective local bodies to provide free internet connection.
The KFON project aims at providing connections to 20 lakh BPL households in the State in a bid to ensure universal internet access and address the problem of the digital divide.
The previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government had declared internet connection as a basic right when the ₹1,548-crore KFON project was launched in 2019. The government will be subsidizing the internet cost for BPL families. Internet services at affordable rates.
“KFON will be able to connect to the nearly 8,000+ mobile towers in Kerala and significantly enhance the mobile call quality and also accelerate the 4G/5G transitions. Presently 80% of the towers are not fiberized and use radio, an issue for the 4G/5G rollout, which will also be solved by KFON,” the website highlighted.
K-Fon’s board of directors includes Bishwanath Sinha, Additional Chief Secretary, E&IT, Government of Kerala; Snehil Kumar Singh, Director at Kerala State IT Mission; and Santhosh Babu, MD at Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure Ltd.
The Kerala State Electricity Board Limited, Bharat Electronics Limited, Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board, and KSITI are the stakeholders in this initiative.
