New Delhi: As India builds highways at a record pace, a critical digital gap is becoming harder to ignore. Citing serious lapses in mobile connectivity across several stretches, particularly greenfield and remote sections, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has sought the intervention of the telecommunications department and the sector regulator to issue directions to service providers to improve coverage.
The move highlights concern that poor digital connectivity along key transport corridors is undermining road safety, emergency response and the delivery of technology-enabled public services.
Emphasizing public safety implications and the strategic significance of the national highway network, the NHAI has called for an expeditious and coordinated approach to improve mobile network connectivity in highway corridors across the country, a statement from ministry of road transport and highways, the administering body for NHAI, said.
Under a comprehensive assessment by the NHAI, 424 locations covering about 1,750 km across the national highway network have been identified as critically-affected due to non-availability of mobile network connectivity. Detailed information on these locations has been compiled and shared with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for necessary action.
India’s total national highway network covers over 1,46,000 km.
Accident stretch alerts sought
The NHAI has sought directions to telecom operators for dissemination of proactive SMS or Flash SMS alerts at geo-mapped accident-prone locations, including stretches affected by stray cattle movement and other identified hazards. These alerts are intended to reach road users prior to their arrival at such locations, enabling timely caution and safer driving behaviour. A list of accident-prone stretches frequently impacted by stray cattle has been shared.
The initiative assumes importance given that India’s 146,195 km highway network recorded 480,583 road accidents in 2023, resulting in 1,72,890 deaths, and 4,62,893 serious injuries, which translates to about 20 deaths every hour. The number of accidents and deaths on highways in India is highest globally, and it results in significant economic loss to the country.
NHAI said its effort to seek intervention to fix mobile network connectivity gaps and enhance safety along national highways is in line with its commitment to work along with with all stakeholders to ensure highways are not just well-connected physically, but are also digitally-enabled.
“This is very vital initiative, to take connectivity to the remotest corners of the country and connect public with road network meaningfully,” said PC Grover, director general of the National Highway Builders Federation.
To be sure, Trai conducts various drive tests on a regular basis to check the quality of telecom services across various locations, including highways, and asks operators to take action.
NHAI efforts needed
Some experts say that the issue may warrant effort from NHAI itself. “While DoT and Trai can ask the operators to take action, a solution here can work is that NHAI itself can become a neutral host, where it can lay the passive infrastructure such as optical fiber cable and tower mounting infrastructure. Telecom operators will only have a job to bring in equipment and provide connectivity,” said Satya N. Gupta, a former principal advisor at Trai.
A telecom neutral host builds and operates shared telecom infrastructure that multiple mobile network operators (MNOs) can use at the same time, instead of each operator deploying its own separate network.
According to Gupta, towards this, the NHAI can charge infrastructure provider fees from the operators, for which the charge can be fixed by the telecom regulator.
A senior official at the telecom regulator said the objective would be to get a network boost. “Trai’s efforts would be to facilitate provision of coverage. The regulator will communicate the connectivity issues on highways to the operators,” the official said, adding that operators also see commercial viability and coverage needs before enabling telecom connectivity in certain areas. “Further, there is also a need to check if operators are facing issues related to right of way (RoW) for laying telecom infrastructure in those areas.”
There could be underlying issues in the highway development as well. A highway developer, on the condition of anonymity, said the NHAI should have created telecom infrastructure while building highways and sought connectivity before the start of traffic movement. This would have prevented a situation where large portions of highways are bereft of any communication network.
In a recent consultation paper on the next spectrum auction, the telecom regulator noted that it had received complaints from consumers about no mobile coverage on certain patches of highways and train routes, certain pockets of residential and commercial areas, and certain segments of rural and remote areas.
“In the drive tests conducted by Trai, the issue of no mobile coverage at numerous places has come to the notice of the Authority. At this stage, it would be worthwhile to deliberate as to whether there is a need to modify the approach followed by the Government in terms of (network) roll-out obligations in public interest,” Trai said in the consultation paper.
(With inputs from Jatin Grover)
