BHUBANESWAR: Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) has been able to lease out less than 5 per cent of the dark fibre in its ambitious optical fibre cable (OFC) network project developed under the Smart City Mission.
With major broadband service providers yet to evince interest for use of the underground OFC network on lease basis, monetisation has been a cause of worry. Under Smart City Mission, BSCL laid out 691 km of optical fibre cable network at an investment of around `45 crore to provide free wi-fi at over 500 access points and offer better digital service in the city. The smart city agency, however, has been able to lease out just around 4.8 per cent of its OFC network to licensed internet and broadband service providers and a few government agencies.
The OFC network infrastructure in the city consists of two types of fibre optics cable, one having 72 pairs of core strands in the ‘distribution network’ and the other having six pairs of core strands in the ‘core network,’ sources in the Smart City Limited informed.
While the six core strands of ‘core network’ and 12 core strands of the ‘distribution network’ have been reserved by BSCL for managing smart elements and other services of the government, the remaining 60 pairs have been set aside for monetisation. The total length of the 60 pairs of core strands in the ‘distribution network’, spread over 480 km, is around 28,800 km, of which BSCL has been able to lease out only about 1,410-odd km to 27 agencies including private broadband service providers.
Though the lease process of the fibre cables started in November 2021, sources said BSCL is still struggling to find buyers for over 95 pc of the fibre optics on its distribution network. Smart Link, Hathway, GTPL, Tata Teleservices, Eastern Media, Roadnet along with OCAC, BSNL and WATCO are some of the agencies that have been leased out the fibre cables.
Their demand, however, has remained limited. With the rate of OFC lease remaining `12,500 per pair, per km, per year, the current leases would fetch BSCL about `1.5 crore annually. The revenue flow is low as government agencies are being provided fibre cables on lease for free.
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