New Draft Guidelines! Government plans to mandate telecom infra installation inside housing projects

The government is planning to mandate installation of telecom infrastructure inside housing projects and premises by making changes in the national building code and model building bye-laws, according to draft Right of Way guidelines issued by the Department of Telecom.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has come up with the draft Right of Way (RoW) guidelines for establishment of telecommunications infrastructure across the country to amend old norms and finetune the rules to suit the requirement of 5G network rollout.

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Telecom operators will need to install 5G sites closer to the ground as the signals transmitted for the service will move at very high speed but cover shorter distances. Unlike 2G, 3G and 4G, the access points for 5G have to be closer to the devices.

"In-Building Solutions (IBS) for laying cables or installing telecom infrastructure shall be made mandatory inside the housing projects and premises," the draft RoW guidelines said.

The draft proposes to do away with application fee and compensation for using street furniture like electric poles, traffic lights, billboards etc established by any person or entity over the immovable property of any local or government authority, for installing small cells and optical fibre cable required to connect small cells.

The entity rolling out telecom infrastructure "shall not require any permission from the Authority for establishing telecommunications infrastructure over any private property falling under the jurisdiction of the authority," it added.

The draft also proposes to waive fee on installation of telecom infrastructure on central government buildings and structures.

The previous RoW guidelines were released in 2016 but it took a long time for most of the states to comply with the norms. Some states have still not adopted the old guidelines.