Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad launches BSNL Airfibre service in Bihar

Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday launched a high-speed wireless broadband service, BSNL Bharat Airfibre, for rural areas of Bihar through video conferencing from the national capital.

Besides this, the minister inaugurated a next-generation network telephone exchange at New Bihar Vidhan Mandal compound, the Ministry of Communications said in a statement. Prasad said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision is to convert challenges into an opportunity for Aatmanirbhar Bharat and on the same lines his mission is also to take opportunities to rural corners of India.

"Especially in the times of COVID-19 pandemic, there is immense scope for digital education, digital skilling and telemedicine etc and broadband connectivity in rural India will play a crucial role. Bharat AirFibre will help us to scale-up faster and meet the target of covering 6 lakh villages in 1,000 Days," Prasad said.

During the event, he announced that 50 more AirFibre sector antennas will be deployed in Bihar within next six months. BSNL has claimed that newly commissioned Bharat AirFibre will help provide faster and reliable internet services in rural areas at par with high-speed optical fibre within the range of six kilometres.

The service can be subscribed by people at Rs 349 per month and will initially cover RK Puram, Anandpur, Danapur Market and Danapur Cantonment from Danapur Telephone Exchange, according to the statement.

The next-generation network telephone exchange inaugurated by the minister is a facility augmentation in Bihar Vidhan Mandal which will serve to the additional demand for wireline and broadband services since it is connected on optical fibre.

"This exchange has a capacity of 512 telephone wireline and 128 broadband connections which can further be increased. New and Old Vidhan Mandal and 3 New Secretariat Block A, B And C will be served through this new facility," the statement said.