BANGALORE, INDIA: UTStarcom, Inc.announced that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) has extended its contract to build the second phase of a countrywide multiplay network launched in December 2007.

During this second phase, UTStarcom will deploy its industry-leading iAN-8000 multiservice access node (MSAN) solution in 962 cities throughout India to enable the addition of 1.1 million new broadband subscriber lines. The network expansion will help BSNL accelerate its existing broadband connections on subscriber lines by more than 30 times the current speed.

Vijay Yadav, vice president and managing director, UTStarcom's South Asia operations, said: "We worked closely with BSNL to successfully complete phase one of this multiplay broadband network and we are pleased that they have chosen to extend their relationship with us for phase two of the deployment. This contract extension re-affirms BSNL's continued trust in UTStarcom's technology and excellent service and support. We are confident that the continued expansion of this network with the phase two deployment will help BSNL retain and improve on their customer base and revenues."

UTStarcom will continue to serve as the turnkey provider for phase two of the deployment, maintaining full responsibility for the network design and planning, deployment, service roll out, and maintenance of the network.

With UTStarcom's ADSL 2+ based broadband solutions, BSNL will be able to extend its offerings of broadband-based, triple-play services such as video-on-demand (VOD), video multicast, VPN services and high-speed Internet services to another 1.1 million broadband subscribers across the country while simultaneously gaining the benefits of network flexibility, scalability for innovation and the opportunity for rapid return on investment.

This deployment also is expected to help India move closer to its goal of 20 million broadband subscribers by 2010.

The existing broadband connection on current networks uses the 'Plain Old Telephone System' (POTS) that delivers only 64 kilobits per second (kbps) of broadband speed. The new ADSL 2+ technology provided by UTStarcom will provide speeds beyond 8 mega bits per second (mbps), which is more than 30 times faster than the existing speed. This will allow BSNL's customers the opportunity to enjoy value added services such as IPTV, VOD, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), VPN service, multicasting over VPN and others over the existing broadband network, in addition to basic Internet surfing capabilities.

UTStarcom also has deployed its NetRing 10000 optical transport solution in support of this multiplay service for the aggregation of DSL traffic in BSNL's network. UTStarcom's NetRing product suite provides service providers with a high level of network resilience and carrier-grade quality of service for subscribers to help ensure trouble-free delivery of real-time mission critical data and video applications.