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RailTel plans OFC at 5000 stations

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

NEW DELHI, INDIA: RailTel Corporation of India, a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Railways is all set to extend its existing Optical Fibre Communication (OFC) network to another 5000 railway stations.

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With the increased penetration the Telco owned by the Indian Railways will be able to cater to a wide range of organizations in the corporate, manufacturing and educational sector, including internal requirements for Passenger Reservation System (PRS). The OFC network at present supports about 2900 railway stations covering 30000 route kilometers in the country covering 45000 route kilometers to provide bandwidth and multi-media services.

The main objective of RailTel will be to penetrate further in the corporate segment including banking and financial markets, manufacturing industries, research and educational institutions. This will enable the Telco to meet the fast growing demands of MPLS-VPN services, corporate leased lines and internet leased lines in these institutions. RailTel data connectivity at every railway station on the OFC route is already enabling large scale opening of Passenger Reservation System (PRS)/Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) facilities thus benefiting common people even at remote stations.

The new expansion initiative will be in line with RailTel’s motto of ‘Connecting India with Fibres,’ which was announced during its 7th foundation day function in Delhi recently. The Telco also launched various innovative services including passenger amenities at railway stations.

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‘Cyber Express’ Cafes at 82 more railway stations

In the new expansion plan, RailTel will be setting up feature packed cyber cafes initially at 82 Railway stations under the brand name of “Cyber Express”. The cafes will be next generation cafes with facilities for web browsing at broadband speed, e-mailing, Internet Gaming, Internet Telephony, Scanning, Printing, Photocopying, faxing and video conferencing – all under one roof.

This facility shall be open 24 hours and 365 days for the public. Users can access cyber cafes through pre paid cards/ vouchers, which can be used, across all the stations thus providing roaming facility to the users.

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To ensure that anti-social elements and terrorists are not using these cyber cafes, intense security measures will be undertaken. With installation of CCTVs and maintenance of photo-registers, RailTel would try to ensure security.

RailTel has successfully started operation of its cyber cafes at 24 stations across India. The stations at which these cyber cafes have been set up are New Delhi, Chandigarh, Gorakhpur, Jaipur, Jhansi, Jodhpur, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Asansol, Sealdah, Howrah, Puri, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Guntur, Bangalore, Ernakulum, Secunderabad, Mysore, Vijayawada, Ahmedabad, Mumbai Central, Nagpur and Pune.

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Wi-Fi Hotspots

For the first time, RailTel will be deploying Wi-Fi hotspots at Railway stations to deliver Internet services to the passengers having Wi-Fi/ WiMax enabled devices. The service will be initially launched at 50 Railway stations, and will be delivered on WiMax/ Wi-Fi based platform. Currently, the services are planned for a radius of 2-4 kilometers; the services are extendable to adjoining areas of the railway stations to retail customers.

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In future, RailTel also plans to further extend these to cover large number of residential and commercial establishments near Railway stations in future. On success of this phase, it is expected to implement the whole project in phases in over 500 locations across India.

Data MPLS on unified IP-Network

Realizing the need for a reliable Passenger Reservation System (PRS) and Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) RailTel will be shifting these vital circuits along with those for train operations and control communication on the Optic Fibre Cable (OFC) and Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network. This guarantees reliable communication with greater availability.

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Huge cost savings are expected, as all these applications will be transferred on a unified IP network, which will be highly efficient and scalable. RailTel’s data connectivity at every Railway station and even at important places in a city on its network will also enable large scale opening of PRS/UTS facility.

Slashing STD rates with NGN Technology

In another major initiative, RailTel has plans to become first National Long Distance (NLD) network in the country to migrate from conventional network to Next Generation Network (NGN) Technology. This is to enable operators to further cut STD rates and make it more efficient STD (National Long Distance) services to subscribers using RailTel’s NLD Network. The company already has IUC (Interconnect) agreement with major operators like Airtel, Idea, TTSL, TTML, and HFCL among others.

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Initially the network is planned to be rolled out in 18 cities and will be increased to cover more cities in the future. The proposed 18 cities are Bangalore, Chennai, Mysore, Coimbatore, Secunderabad, Madurai, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Lucknow, New Delhi, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata and Patna. With this RailTel will be able to cover 14 telecom circles in the first phase.

On the strength of this network, RailTel will be able to offer not only STD trunk services but can further enhance its service portfolio by offering various Value Added Services (VAS) like enterprise VoIP, Video conferencing, etc to its Enterprise customers.

Interestingly the Telco owned by the Indian Railways has also applied for a NLD operator license with the department of telecom for this purpose.

RailTel, which has 30000 kilometers of OFC, aims to spread the telecom revolution to remote and backward areas of the country. The company was formed in September 2000 with the objectives to create nationwide Broadband Telecom & Multimedia Network in all parts of the country. The company’s operation also includes modernizing train control operations and safety systems and to significantly contribute to realization of goals and objectives of National Telecom Policy of 1999.

RailTel is now a profit-earning PSU, taking into account the provisional earnings during the first quarter of the current financial year

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