51 Infrastructure Provider-I Licences In Six Months

The central government has issued 51 infrastructure provider category I (IP-I) licences to the private sector in the last six months.

Interestingly, a large number of companies which have bagged the licence are non-telecom organisations like BSES Ltd, Tata Power, Powertel Solutions, Atlanta Capital, Zoom Develo-pers, West Bengal Network, Hindustan Construction, Steadfast Construction, Bombay Gas Company and Asianet Satellite Communications.

The government had divided the infrastructure provider category licence into IP-1 and IP-2. While IP-2 licence holders are allowed to provide the bandwidth and lay optic fiber cable, IP-1 licence holders essentially own the right of way and the telecom duct for optic fibre cables which can be sold to telecom service providers.

Even small companies like Bhavya Communications, Kerala Communication, Fibrenet Private Ltd, NetShastr Facilities, Mediacast India, Haryana Cybernet, Ice Net.net, E Comm Opportunity, Punjab Cybernet and Netware Infosys have taken IP-1 licences.