Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government on 5 June officially launched the Kerala Fibre Optical Network (KFON), which is one of its flagship projects envisaged during the first term.
Now the Kerala government, which was the first state to declare the right to the internet as a basic right, is mulling decreasing the digital divide with KFON and wants to ensure high-speed broadband internet access to all houses and government offices.
Apart from this, the state government is also intending to accelerate Kerala’s journey towards being a knowledge-based economy, the report added.
What is KFON?
KFON is an optical fibre cable network of 30,000 km, with 375 Points-of-Presence across the state. Along with the cable operators, the KFON infrastructure will be shared with all service providers. However, individual beneficiaries will have to depend on private, local internet service providers, while others will do the cable work for government offices. The government has said that KFON will be provided by local ISP/TSP/cable TV providers.
Connectivity status:
Till 5 June, KFON has provided connectivity to 17,412 government offices and 2,105 houses. Also, to give connection to 9,000 houses, a cable network has been laid down. The government is mulling providing connectivity to 30,000 government offices and 14,000 BPL families in the state in the first stage of KFON.
The KFON claims an internet speed from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps and is planning to speed up the transition to 4G and 5G, once KFON is connected to mobile towers.
Stakeholders:
KFON is a joint venture of Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) and Kerala State IIT Infrastructure Limited and is estimated to be ₹1,611 crore. Announced in 2017, it started working in 2019. A consortium led by Central PSU Bharat Electronics Limited took up the project implementation, where PriceWaterhouseCoopers is the consultant.
The infrastructure asset shall be owned by KSEBL, while Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure Ltd (KSITIL) will be responsible for the operations and maintenance of the project, said the report. Bharat Electronics (BEL) has taken the tasks of rolling the optical fibre cable network, providing connectivity to government institutions and setting up network point of presence locations.
