IT Infrastructure

TELECOM CONNECTIVITY

Efficient telecom infrastructure is the single most important input for the IT industry – be it for IT enabled services or for IT (software) exports. The Government of India has steadily been opening up the telecom sector making it more competitive and thereby ensuring efficiency and lower cost of service provision.

It has divested its stake in the monopoly operator, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) - India’s telecom gateway to the world- to the TATA Group (one of India’s largest private sector business houses) who will act as the strategic partner. Government of India is also opening up the international telecom carrier business as a whole to competition. This is expected to bring international tariffs down, as has happened in the domestic local and long distance tariffs.

State of the art Telecom Connectivity: VSNL
The state boasts of two international satellite earth stations of VSNL supported by two gateway switches for total global reach. These earth stations, both located at Kolkata, serve the entire eastern region. In Kolkata, one earth station (F2) is located on top of the SDF building at Salt Lake. This earth station is used to operate IDR/ DCME carriers and has a capacity of radiating a number of 2 mb carriers in different directions. The other is located at Videsh Sanchar Bhawan (VSB) in Ultadanga and has a capacity of 240 PSTN CCTS. 

The total capacity of the International Gateway Switch in Kolkata is 11000 circuits of which 4500 circuits are now in use.

The Software Technology Park of India (STPI) is putting up another earth station of capacity 155 mbps at Kharagpur.

In addition to this, a number of private bandwidth providers arrange for greater internet bandwidth for knowledge-based industries who set up facilities in the state. V-SAT infrastructure of National Informatics Centre provides additional bandwidth for information transfer. BSNL has provided connectivity to 326 out of 341 blocks through 2 mbps bandwidth, either through Optic Fibre Cable (OFC) or microwave. This has strengthened the city’s international communications. BSNL has also earmarked an investment of Rs. 250 crores to connect major Indian cities (starting with the metros) using the Dense Wave Division Multiplex (DWDM) technology to increase the bandwidth manifold to accommodate new applications and subscribers. The DWDM, based on Optical Fibre technology would increase the current bandwidth of 2.5 GB by about 50-60 times.

BSNL

http://www.bsnl.co.in 

http://www.calcutta.bsnl.co.in 

BSNL, Calcutta Telephones is the prime telecom service provider inCalcutta City. It has a total digital switch capacity of 1.6 million wirelines (served by 31 No Alcatel and Siemens family switches) and serves 1.35 million wireline subscribers. It has 2264 Km optical fibre network in the city spanning the switches. This provides a transmission network within the city comprising of the following systems

565 Mb -   4 km

140 Mb - 102 km

34 Mb -  80 km

8 Mb -  22 km

STM-16 Ring - 15 Km

STM-4  Ring - 26 Km

Calcutta Telephones has a total Internet Connectivity gateway bandwidth 4 X 34 Mbps. Internet Connection is provided to corporate customers in Multiples of 64 kbps bandwidth upto 2 Mbps using flexible MLLN system. Calcutta Telephones also provides wireless mobile telephone services using GSM and CDMA technolgy and serves about 60000 wireless

West Bengal Telecom has increased its exchange capacity by 2.5 times in last three years. The equipped capacity has grown to 11,14,878 as in February 2002 and total working connection touched 8,75,416. The Network contains 13 high capacity Digital Trunk Automatic Exchanges (TAX) with broadband reliable optical fibre links.

OFC bandwidth will shortly become available from Reliance Infocom Private Limited, which is setting up a Rs 800 crore optical fibre cable network within the state. The project involves laying nearly 4000 km of optical fibre across West Bengal that will link Kolkata with all other districts. The company is laying 1560 km of optical fiber cables in Kolkata itself by creating a 450-km optic fiber main access ring linking client sites through some 640-km of last mile connectivity. This is expected to be completed by the end of 2002. Bharti has also evinced interest for connecting Kolkata to Chennai through OFC linkages.

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