The Hindu : BSNL to launch Virtual Private Network soon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 07, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

BSNL to launch Virtual Private Network soon

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE Jan. 6. The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. will soon launch its Virtual Private Network — a major project in advanced Internet Protocol (IP) networks, the Chief General Manager, Southern Telecom Projects (STP), Chennai, M. Ramachandran, said here today.

The VPN was completed and in the final stages of testing. Based on the multiprotocol label switching (MPLW), the IP-VPN would eliminate congestion on the transmission route, allowing users to transfer high volumes of data over long distances without loss in transit. Besides, overhead and maintenance cost would be low.

"Our IP-VPN will be the best in the world. It is a next generation network that will turn us world leader in this technology," Mr. Ramachandran told presspersons after presenting the Bharat Sanchar Sarathi Award and Sanchar Seva Padak to 32 officials and staff of the Southern Telecom Projects.

"It will be subscribers' own network, instead of being a leased line. The charges will be lower, and no complicated hardware would be needed," he said. A sum of Rs. 40 crores was invested in equipment and the existing optic fibre cables (OFC).

The STP had also introduced the first Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing in the country. The system would cover Chennai, Bangalore, Vellore, Salem, Coimbatore, Tiruchi, Madurai, Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam.

The STP had planned to commission 1,214 km of OFC in Tamil Nadu and 334 km in Kerala during 2003-04. For Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, 4,671 km of OFC would be commissioned.

On the hectic competition in the cellular phone sector, Mr. Ramachandran said the slash by 88 per cent in the mobile-to-mobile STD tariff actually contained a hidden escalation in rates on calls within 500 km. "Most of the STD calls are made within 500 km and for this section of the consumers, the rate has, in fact, gone up from Rs. 2.40 to 2.99 a minute."

The Principal General Manager, BSNL, Coimbatore, R.S. Venkatesan, was optimistic that the BSNL's cellular service, `Cellone', would gradually build a substantial subscriber base, notwithstanding the competition from the private players.

``The BSNL's strength would be transparency in billing. Once our subscribers get the first bill, they would know the difference between Cellone and the rest." There were 6,000 Cellone subscribers in Coimbatore, out of 7.5 lakhs in the country.

Earlier, presenting the awards, Mr. Ramachandran called for an attitude change among the officials and staff to square up to the challenge from the private basic telephony and cellular service providers. "The monopoly attitude should go and customer interface must be improved."

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