Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha hopes to present the country with a new national telecom policy in the new year after receiving the public feedback on the policy by end-December 2017. Addressing a presser in New Delhi on October 7, he said the BharatNet project is going on at a faster pace, and firms such as Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone are ready to provide services to rural areas. Under BharatNet, the Centre plans to provide broadband connectivity to 2.5 lakh gram panchayats (GPs). "Telecom services providers have come forward for utilizing BharatNet connectivity. Airtel has shown interest in 10,000 GPs for taking 1 Gbps connectivity on a lease, while Reliance Jio, Vodafone, and Idea are interested in taking 100 Mbps connectivity on lease in about 30,000, 2,000 and 1,000 GPs, respectively," Sinha said. "The rolling out of services by TSPs in these GPs are expected to trigger the village-level ecosystem, thereby widening the extent to cover the number of GPs in near future. This will give an impetus to broadband facilities in rural India." Sinha said that as of November 5, optical fiber cable connectivity has been achieved in 1,03,275 GPs by laying fiber for 2,38,677 km. GPON (Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Networks) equipment have been installed in 85,506 GPs, and 75,082 GPs are services ready.