Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Tata Teleservices’ new facility for faster Internet access

CHENNAI: Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) on Wednesday announced the piloting of a wireless router and a USB modem capable of accessing the Internet at much higher speeds than are currently available for users.

The “Photon” service, which has been soft launched in Chennai suburbs, offers the router for small and medium businesses or high-usage homes while the USB modem is targeted at individual users and the small office and home office segment.

TTSL officials told a press meet that the performance of the gadgets would be evaluated after six months before taking the offerings nationwide on a commercial basis.

The Photon service has been rolled out in select suburbs in Chennai on Tata Indicom’s packages.

They said the router and modem can deliver Internet speeds that are about 10 times faster than existing mobile wireless technology.

However, they added a rider that the actual speeds could drop marginally as a large number of users log on to a network.

“The gadgets have been developed from the point of view of supporting the communities that access the Internet,” said S. Nagarajan, vice-president, High Network Individual (HNI) Business, TTSL India.

The compact router with a set of four antennae can link up to four computers while the USB is designed for a single user, said Sangeet Nigam, Circle Operating Officer, Tamil Nadu Circle.

The Photon pilot would be integrated with “Project Learning”, a programme in which TTSL is partnering with NASSCOM Foundation and Qualcomm, to take IT education to rural schools. The programme has already hooked up 66 schools, mostly in south India, reaching out to an estimated 33,000 students and Photon services would be provided to select institutions, Mr. Nagarajan said.

NASSCOM Foundation is engaged in discussions with the Education Ministry to identify schools across the country that could be involved in the education initiative.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu