Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) plans to set up 19,000 towers to provide mobile phone services to villages.

The task will be accomplished in two phases. Nearly 8,000 towers will be set up in the first phase by the end of 2008. The remaining 11,000 towers will be set up in the second phase. BSNL will also acquire 93 million global systems for mobile communication (GSM) lines to provide mobile phone services in villages.

To begin with, the government will connect 5,000 blocks by wireless broadband. Blocks are the samllest administrative units in the country. The towers will provide connectivity to villages within a radius of 10 km of a block headquarter and will connect schools, public health centres, village administrative bodies and the community service centres.

The work will be funded by the universal service obligation (USO) fund and will start following the allocation of spectrum to telecom operators. The USO fund was set up to provide mobile phone services to areas not covered by private players due to lack of profitability. X