New Delhi, Nov. 21: The department of telecommunications (DoT) has issued a draft document to provide financial support to telecom companies under the universal service obligation (USO) fund to set up, share and manage infrastructure sites. This will enable them to start mobile services in rural areas.

DoT proposes to use the USO fund to reduce the net cost of setting up and maintaining rural telephony infrastructure. This will help telecom players overcome the basic hurdle in starting rural services.

“The Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund would help increase penetration of telephony in remote areas and offer a new chapter of infrastructure sharing,” said N.K. Goyal, president, Indian Manufacturing Foundation and chairman, emeritus, TEMA.

A Bharti Airtel spokesperson said, “With the urban areas getting saturated in terms of telecom coverage, rural areas present a largely untapped market for most players.”

“Till now, the glitch in extending telephony to remote areas has been the high cost to acquire land, set up and maintain infrastructure like base towers and antennas. But the proposed USO fund will help remove those hurdles to usher in huge mobile penetration in remote villages,” he added.

At present, telecom companies have to bid to take out money from the USO fund to provide rural telephony.

The draft document, prepared on the basis of Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Ordinance, has been placed on the official website of DoT to invite suggestions and comments from the industry.

The draft document said the first part of the scheme relates to setting up of infrastructure sites by infrastructure providers comprising land, tower, electrical connection and power back-up to be supported by USO Fund.

The second part of the draft relates to provisioning of mobile services by telecom service providers for which the base telephone equipment and antennas would be set up. The draft states that shortlisted infrastructure providers shall set up and manage the infrastructure sites. The height of the tower shall be 40 m to accommodate three service providers.