BSNL offers virtual personal network to India Inc

Monday, 26 May 2003, 19:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
BANGALORE: India's telecom infrastructure went up a few notches Saturday with the launch of the secure and cost effective virtual personal network (VPN) service by the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). The VPN, using multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) technology, has been described as a "big boon" to the small and medium enterprises in the IT sector by Som Mittal, chairman of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom). The IP-VPN service, which provides the right kind of secure network for banks and financial institutions, is available in all state capitals although it was officially launched in the 10 cities of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi, Ernakulam, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune. The MPLS-VPN service provides secured connectivity at one eighth of the cost of leased lines and is easily scalable for high capacity transmission, practically doing away with in-house technical work force. The range of value added services include bandwidth on demand, video conferencing and voice over IP (VoIP). "This is really the new dial tone of the next generation. It is not only competitive in India but globally too," said Brad Gray, vice president of Juniper Networks, which worked with state-owned Indian Telephone Industries to develop the technology. The launch of the service is to cost of Rs 300 million, which is expected to be recovered by BSNL in the "next three years", P.K. Sinha, director (commercial and marketing), told reporters on the sidelines of the launch. "The launch makes leased lines and unsecured data transmission a thing of the past," added K. Padmanabhan, chief general manager, Karnataka circle. The BSNL has announced early bird incentives like discount from five to ten percent for those registering in the next one month for the three classes of service based on the committed rate of bandwidth.
Source: IANS