India set to create 21st century communication network says Netravali

Hyderabad, Feb 12The potential is all here to create a communication network that could take not only India but also the developed countries to the 21st century. Arun N Netravali, President, Bell Laboratories, told this at a seminar organized by the company in

Hyderabad. 

"India is well positioned, thanks to her expanding fiber optic and wireless networks, increased deregulation/competition, and her burgeoning high-tech sector, including a large and growing cadre of highly educated engineers and computing/software professionals. Equally important is the fact that India's initiative is timed to take advantage of the giant strides in communications technologies, especially opto-electronic, wireless and packet networking technologies, that can provide cost savings and operating benefits." He added.

The country has a tremendous potential to create a 21st century communications network, surpassing the networks of other countries, even developed nations. This could be accomplished by creating a high capacity, low-cost, future-proof, optical meshed backbone network that meets all of the service needs, creating cost-effective, rapidly-deployable access solutions to meet its diversity of needs ranging from high tech metros to basic rural services and accelerating information, services, and applications economies while providing services to all its communities. "The proposed solution for India is based on using new emerging technologies and leveraging existing assets to provide a future-proof, lowest-cost network infrastructure," explained

Netravali. 

Having opened its second research and development center in Hyderabad, Bell Labs would now be looking at expanding its reach to other places like Chennai, Pune and New Delhi. Bell labs is now keen on tying up with leading academic and research institutes in India to promote R&D activity in India. "We are very much interested in tapping the talent the India has in terms of skilled software professionals. We have entered into an agreement with IIT Mumbai for collaborative program with Bell Lab's engineer and IIT faculty," he explained.