The Himachal Pradesh government and the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (POWERGRID), a central public sector enterprise (CPSE) of the Union government, has signed an agreement for better telecom connectivity in remote areas of the state. POWERGRID has signed an agreement with HP State Electricity Board Ltd for utilization of 500 km of OPGW (Optical Ground Wire) telecom network, Naresh Kumar, Senior General Manager, Corporate Communications POWERGRID said on Wednesday. “This is in addition to the existing 350 km of OPGW laid on HPSEBL Extra High Voltage (EHV) lines already being used in the state to boost connectivity in remote areas. This total 850 km long telecom network will enable POWERGRID Telecom to reach remote areas of Kangra, Una, Mandi, Kullu, Bilaspur, Sirmour, Palampur, Sundernagar, Banikhet, Amb, Paonta Sahib, Nahan etc,” he added. Kumar further stated that in rough weather conditions, landslides and difficult terrains, the state had been facing limited telecom network reach and this initiative will give much needed connectivity to remote areas of the state. “Through this OPGW Network, Telecom Service providers will be able to provide uninterrupted mobile and internet services to the people of the state,” he said. He added the CPSE had created over 67,500 km of OFC (Optical Fibre cable) network connecting over 1000 plus locations across the country carrying traffic in multiple of 10G/100G (Gigabit) in rings. “The POWERGRID OFC network covers all the important towns and cities of the country along with the hilly & difficult terrains of Jammu Kashmir and North Eastern region. The company had also provided the domestic leg of International Connectivity to Bhutan and Nepal and proposed connectivity to Bangladesh up to the Indian border to International Long Distance (ILD) licensees, he added.

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