Kerala becomes first state to have own Internet service

Kerala’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced that the state is now the first and only state in the country to have its own internet service.

The announcement followed the Department of Telecommunications’ granting of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) licence to the IT infrastructure project of the Kerala Fiber Optic Network Ltd (K-Fon), which aims to provide everyone in the state access to the internet. K-Fon is a state government initiative that aims to eliminate the digital gap.

Apart from reducing the digital gap, K-Fon will complement the existing telecom ecosystem in the state and will act as the perfect catalyst positioning Kerala as a Gigabit Economy. The government expects that K-Fon will also play a significant role in sections such as delivering remote education, creating job opportunities, providing remote healthcare access, boosting infrastructure development, sharing information regarding e-governance and agriculture matters, as well as triggering innovations.

The objectives of K-Fon include:

· Create a core network infrastructure (information highway) with non-discriminatory access to all service providers so that they can augment their connectivity gap.

· Provide a reliable, secure and scalable intranet connecting all government offices, educational institutions, hospitals, etc.

· Partner with Multiple System Operators, Telecommunication Service Providers, and Internet Service Providers for providing free internet to economically backward households.

As per the state authorities, any provider at any level of the business segment, including Telecommunication Service Providers, Internet Service Providers, Multiple System Operators and Local cable operators, can use this network to fill in connectivity gaps at their core networks without having to worry about meeting the burdensome Righ of Way or RoW and expensive CAPEX criteria.