The Hindu Business Line : RailTel on fast track, to offer seamless cable link

The company's optical fibre cable network across 25,000 route kilometres, which could grow to 40,000 km, will be able to offer seamless connectivity with multi-point presence network and possibly challenge established telecom carriers and service providers.

RailTel has awarded a major contract to Juniper Networks, which will enable the former to offer Internet Protocol-based virtual private networks (VPN) for enterprises and cater to a host of cyber cafes dotting major cities and towns.

The Country Manager of Juniper Networks, MrJava Giridhar, told Business Line, "RailTel has selected Juniper's M-series multi-service edge routing platform to help transform RailTel's nationwide railway network into a next generation IP network. This deployment, while complimenting its optical fibre cable network, will create one of India's largest IP-based VPN infrastructure, enabling RailTel to offer a wide variety of value-added services." "This installation will be in 38 cities and enable RailTel to compete with some of India's largest carriers in providing telecommunications services that go beyond simple broadband access. With this, RailTel points of presence will be available at every railway station, totalling approximately 4,000 by 2008 and providing secure Internet connections to railway customers," he said.

Referring to the Indian telecom market, Mr Giridhar said the country has emerged as the hottest investment destination. The recent announcement by the Centre to hike telecom FDI to 74 per cent could add to the market buoyancy. Juniper Networks is extremely bullish on the market.

Mr Giridhar said, "If this current trend is any indication, China, India are among the hottest destinations for large carriers, which are not only expanding rapidly but increasing network capabilities to offer a range of solutions for the large enterprise market segment. In fact, potential growth areas such as IP VPN and data-centric applications are yet to be tapped. This calls for innovation to make what Juniper describes as Infranet, which ensures quality of service across the network."

RailTel is making its presence felt in areas such as VPN, cyber cafes and Internet on trains, thus making the telecom revolution reach even the remotest area in the country.

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