Chennai Telephones to offer Net, cellular services

CHENNAI, September 7: Chennai Telephones, the city's monopoly basic

telephony service provider, will soon be adding a gamut of services.

Chennai Telephones plans to become an Internet Service Provider (ISP) in

four months. The second will be cellular service, within the next one year

and the third is the Wireless Local Loop service which is currently being

tested in the city.

The service provider plans to increase the number of `small exchanges'

in the city, to widen its reach. Currently, it caters to more than 7 lakh

subscribers in the city, which is expected to increase up to 10 lakh by

the end of the current financial year.

Chennai Telephones Chief General Manager C.V. Rajan said, "Since

the Internet scenario is dominating every field and we, being a backbone

in providing internet service through our telephone service, the

department has a clear-cut advantage in providing Internet service."

The entrance of Chennai Telephones into the Internet Service Provider

(ISP) bandwagon is a part of the National Internet Backbone (NIB) plan by

the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). According to the plan, the

telephony service provider will cover 45 cities in three phases for

offering Internet access. The first phase (A1 nodes) will cover six major

cities in India, including Chennai. A 34 Mbps link from VSNL will support

the accessibility. The pricing of the service, which is yet to be fixed,

will be on par with VSNL, according to Rajan.

Chennai Telephones plans to rope in 20,000 subscribers in the first

year of operations. Currently, the dominant ISP, VSNL, has 30,000

subscribers in the city, while Satyam, Dishnet, KMR Online and Cyberwave,

the other ISPs in the city, share another 20,000 subscribers amongst

themselves.

Chennai now has two cellular operators, RPG and Skycell. Chennai

telephones plans to break into the market with its `competitive pricing'.

"Chennai is a very conservative market. People adopt wait-and-watch

policy before investing in any product/technology. With Chennai expanding

and more industrial units popping-up, mobile communication has become

important in the buzz of activities," said Mr. Rajan.

Chennai Telephones is the main hub of the State, according to the plan

of DoT. About 10,000 lines have been earmarked by Chennai Telephones for

this purpose. The C-DOT switch for this purpose has already been installed

and the Flower Bazaar exchange will be the operational headquarters for

the service. The two other states chosen by DoT for the GSM based cellular

operations are Andhra Pradesh with Hyderabad as the hub and Punjab with

Chandigarh as the hub.

Chennai Telephones is also experimenting with the Wireless Local Loop

service. It has already started its pilot project in the city,

commissioning 250 lines. The antenna, based on Motorola technology, has

been installed in the Haddows Road exchange with a frequency clearance of

5 to 6 Km in radius. This technology is also expected extend to all the

exchanges in the near future.

Similarly, the number of small exchanges is also on the increase. At

least 20 places in the city outskirts have been identified by Chennai

Telephones to install small exchanges. Reduction of fault liability is the

major reason for installation of small exchanges. The small exchanges will

be connected through an optical fiber from the main exchange from the

conventional copper wire connection. There are 12 main exchanges and 28

remote nodes, in turn connected to the main exchange.