K-Phone: Certified infrastructure provider in the telecom sector

Kerala : Chief minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday said that the union government has approved the request of the state government to certify Kerala Fibre Optic Network (K-FON) as an infrastructure provider in the telecom sector.

K-FON has secured an IP-1 certificate of the ministry. Santhosh Babu, Managing Director, KFON told that the companies have quoted very good prices per connection. The State government will be footing this bill as part of its project to provide free internet connections to BPL families.

"8 companies responded to our call and six of them have now qualified. The government had earlier instructed to go ahead with the connections once we secure an ISP license. We have applied for the same. The process is expected to be completed in the next few days. The company which has quoted the lowest amount is ready to provide connections in almost all areas, as their pricing is based on volumes. We need to see whether there are areas which are difficult to provide connections for some service providers," said Mr.Babu.

Installation of necessary infrastructure has been completed in 23,091 out of the 30,000 government institutions, including offices, educational institutions and hospitals, which will also get connections in the first phase. The offices will be linked to the Network Operation Centre in Kalamassery through 375 Points of Presence (POPs), which are full-fledged nodal IT infrastructure installed within the KSEB substations in each area.

In the first phase, 100 BPL families in 140 assembly constituencies of the state will be identified through their respective local bodies to provide free internet connection.The KFON project aims to provide connectivity to 20 lakh BPL households in the state to ensure universal internet access and address the issue of digital divide.