The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Broadband connection with a host of services soon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 18, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Broadband connection with a host of services soon

By N. Ravi Kumar

CHENNAI, DEC. 17. Chennai Telephones is all geared to launch the DataOne Broadband services of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) that promises high-speed Internet connectivity at competitive rates.

"The infrastructure has been put in place and we have finalised the tariff too," says K.B. Brahmadathan, Chief General Manager of Chennai Telephones. The city will soon play host to the national launch.

Even as the date of inauguration, which may be by the Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Dayanidhi Maran, is getting decided, Chennai Telephones has begun registrations for prospective users.

While only high-speed (up to 8 Megabytes per second) always-on Internet — with speed not less than 256 kilobytes per seconds — will be available initially, the services proposed are video-multicasting, video-on-demand, interactive gaming, video and audio conference. "It will be a highly dynamic package," explains Mr. Brahmadathan, hinting that the cost of accessing the basic service (Internet) would be less than Rs.400 a month. However, there were no plans to offer cable television through telephone connection.

From the perspective of users, broadband connection means accessing a host of services from the copper wire used for voice telephony. The technology that allows this is known as Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Once subscribers switch on their personal computers and the ADSL modem, an Internet connection is instantly established.

Some of the advantages of broadband are faster downloads, bandwidth on demand, simultaneous use of telephone and the Internet and nil telephone charges for using the Internet. According to BSNL, the broadband is at least 4.5 times and up to 140 times faster than dial-up connection. Apart from the CPE (Customer Premise Equipment), the broadband connection consists of an ADSL modem/router and a stand-alone or a built-in splitter to separate it from the telephone connection.

Subscriber base

Noting that Chennai Telephones was targeting one lakh subscribers by December 2005, Mr. Brahmadathan says he is confident of a manifold increase in registrations once the tariff is made public. An estimated 10 per cent of the 10 lakh Chennai Telephones subscribers access Internet using a dial-up connection.

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