Goa first wired state in Inida

A recent news report suggests that now Goa will shortly be the most "wired" state in India. In 2005 I visited India and stayed in a village in Goa for three weeks. One thing which impressed me were the tech savvy locals, with the nuns at the convent being on the Internet, cyber cafes used by locals (which not in use by the tourists) and wireless broadband available. The Goa initiative is very similar to those for connecting Australian rural areas, with fibre optic cable to towns (and local government), then wireless for remote users:

Goa is set to become the first state in India to be fully connected through a high-bandwidth broadband network. By March, the network will be rolled out together by the state government and Bangalore-based tech solutions company United Telecom Ltd in a so-called public-private partnership model.

Optic fibre cables and wireless technologies will be used across the state and will also link some 200 computer kiosks that deliver government services to the state’s residents.

United Telecom is also providing connectivity for 450 common service centres in Jharkhand.

The first phase of the Goa broadband network, connecting every taluka and district with 10gbps (gigabits per second, a measure of speed of the network) bandwidth is already complete, while the second phase, connecting panchayats in 403 villages with 1gbps connectivity, will be complete by December. Every household will get bandwidth of 2-10mbps (megabits per second) by March. ...

From: Broadband for all: Goa to be first fully wired state by March, by Regina Anthony, Mon, Aug 20 2007. 12:40 AM IST, Livemit.com, HT Media