Industry Telecommunications Services Internet services Owner Government of India | Headquarters India Website www.bbnl.nic.in Type State-owned enterprise | |
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Key people Smt. Aruna Sundararajan (Chairman & MD) | ||
National optical fibre network nofn by bharat broadband network limited digital india bbnl
Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), is a Telecom infrastructure provider, set up by the government of India for the establishment, management and operation of National Optical Fibre Network. It is under Telecom department.
BBNL was incorporated as a Special Purpose Vehicle(SPV) under Companies Act of 1956. It was incorporated on 25 February 2012.
On 25 October 2011 the government of India approved the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) to connect all 2,50,000 Gram panchayats (GPs) in the country. This is to be achieved utilizing the existing optical fiber and extending it to the Gram panchayats. Bangalore based United Telecoms Ltd (UTL ) had won the GPON bid being lowest bidder. The bid of UTL was almost 80% lower to the nearest bidder ITI followed by Tejas, Sterlite etc. BSNL, RailTel and PGCIL have been assigned the execution work by BBNL. Other government companies like C-DOT, TCIL and NIC are working with BBNL on the NOFN Project. The funding of the project is from Universal Services Obligation Fund.
As on April 2013, Gujarat state government has planned to connect all the villages through Fiber optic network. This network will be provided by BBNL and to be used for eGRAM project. BBNL, State government and Central government are part of this project.