Rashida Bakait
Mumbai
Now you can browse net on your television the way you browse on
your computers. This is the latest offering VSNL has on offer
through their Direct To Home (DTH) services by the end of this
year, KP Tiwari, GM-Internet, VSNL told the CNS. The ambitious
project envisages an investment of Rs 80 crore. The nodal point
of operations will be located at Delhi. With this project, VSNL
will be the first player in India to enter the legalized DTH
market.
As Tiwari said, "VSNL is ready with the ground equipment and
KU band satellite facilities too. Now the customer just needs to
install the instruments to use our services."
After cable Internet services became big, DTH is on hand to
provide Net on television. Tiwari felt that DTH was a better
cable Internet services. However, considering the expense
involved, doubt remains over the popularity of services. Tiwari
noted that although the services were expensive, VSNL would
bundle good quality platform to access channels and the net
simultaneously.
DTH services from VSNL would do away with the hassles of taking
two different connections and would enable the user to surf
channels and has a capacity of 7/8 Mb. As he puts it, "More
channels will mean more bandwidth and more speed."
Tiwari said that VSNL would opt for the franchisee route to take
the services to homes. First the metro cities will be targeted
followed by other cities, depending on the availability of the
franchisees in other cities. The customer will have to shell out
a sum of Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 as monthly fees.
Besides launch of DTH services, VSNL's Internet Data Center (IDC)
will soon be operational at Vashi in August. IDC has been
exclusively planned by VSNL and the infrastructure assistance has
been provided by CIDCO. With the estimated investment of around
Rs 40 crore IDC has the capacity to store around three thousand
servers in three hundred racks on an area of around 20,000 sq ft.
(CNS)