The Indian government has announced plans to geotag key telecom infrastructure, including telecom towers and optical fibre cables, to facilitate coordination, particularly in disaster situations.
Geotagging is usually described as the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds. Presumably in this case the tags will be adapted to identify where infrastructure is and how effectively it is working.
Indeed, according to the Economic Times news service, while telecoms infrastructure has reached most parts of the country, it is not mapped. In the event of a disaster, effective coordination will be undermined. Once infrastructure is geotagged, however, the government will be aware of where a network is down and the nearest point for securing help.
The mapping of telecom infrastructure will apparently also help to enable the setting up of developmental projects across the country.
The aim is to geotag communication infrastructure across the country by 2027. For this, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will coordinate with other ministries and state governments so that data can be shared in facilitating the setting up of other projects that may require telecom infrastructure as a backbone.
The government is likely start the process with state-run firms like Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), followed by private operators, though whether Vodafone idea, Reliance Jio or Bharti Airtel will be keen to share information about fibre assets is another question.
That said, details of mobile towers are already available to the DoT on the Saral Sancher (Simplified Application For Registration and Licenses) portal.
