Nine million broadband lines by year end: Maran

New Delhi, Apr 25 (UNI) Communication and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran-today said broadband connections would go up more than three times by the year-end to nine million from 2.7 million currently.

The Minister said the demand for the government-owned BSNL and MTNL's broadband services is high. Currently, BSNL is present in 800 cities, where it offers broadband services.

Presently, there are 2.7 million broadband connections in the country.

''We are trying to host web servers across the country in an attempt to reduce the bandwidth costs,'' a senior telecom official said adding BSNL has been asked to set up their own web servers.

A 42.5 MHz spectrum will be available by July while the 3G spectrum plan is in process, he said.

UNI