The Hindu Business Line : RailTel to foray into broadband, long distance telephony

The company is planning to increase its optic fibre cable network from 26,000-route km to 40,000 km by 2008 and is increasing its capacity to 2.5 giga bits per second to offer high speed broadband and Internet services.

"Once the ongoing process of upgrading the capacity of the optic fibre cable network from STM-4 to STM-16 over 23,000 km is completed in June 2005, RailTels' revenue earning capability will increase beyond expectations. RailTel will make every effort to exploit this vast network through public private partnership by means of joint venture, either through leasing or channel partner," said Mr Lalu Prasad, Union Minister for Railways, while introducing the Budget in Parliament on Saturday.

RailTel has completed connectivity of four metros and four mini-metros. This apart, the present network already provides connectivity to 180 cities and 1,750 railway stations. RailTel has reported revenues of Rs 26 crore for the year 2003-04.

Mr Prasad said that RailTel would look at providing various broadband services such as Internet, voice telephony on Internet, cable TV and national long distance telephony. The Economic Survey had pegged broadband service as the next big thing in the telecom sector. Large telecom players including Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Bharti and Reliance are also foraying into this segment with a combined OFC network of over 5.5 lakh route km. RailTel has also made plans to foray into the international long distance segment, which at present is dominated by the Tata-controlled Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd.

The Minister said that the Railways would be deploying information technology to improve the process of planning, monitoring and decision-making. Some of the new initiatives include developing a data warehouse called Management Information System, which will be developed from the unreserved ticketing system, passenger reservation system and freight operations information system. The control over movement of trains is also being computerised to provide information on a real time basis. In order to streamline the management of train crews a unified crew management system is also being developed.

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