India's first C-DOT RAX center gets MAX-NG upgrade

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) has successfully completed the upgrade of India's first RAX at Kittur in Karnataka to MAX-NG for NGN services. This would facilitate video calling and VoIP service besides host of other features.

The MAX-NG upgrade is expected to be implemented through BSNL network across the country within next 2 to 3 years' timeframe. C-DOT has also completed 25 years of India's first C-DOT RAX deployment today.

Advisor to the Prime Minister on public information, infrastructure and innovation Sam Pitroda, said that they have focused upon rural telecom, indigenous manufacturing and local talent that facilitated telecom revolution in India.

''India's first rural exchange in Kittur has best microprocessors and has all interesting features,'' Pitroda said. DoT, he said, has played a key role in telecom boom. We are on the cusp of yet another revolution led by broadband, added Pitroda.  

''It is creditable that through all this turbulence C-DOT has moved on to produce optical fibre transmission equipment, VSAT equipment, upgrading its switches to ISDN, intelligent networking, and even mobile switching technology,'' he said.

The quality of service and price to performance ratio of C-DOT, Pitroda  said, is competitive and attractive in global competition. The government sees the fiber connectivity to 250,000 panchayats as yet another revolutionary milestone.

VVR Sastry, executive director, C-DOT said that MAX-NG program will breath fresh life into the fixed line infrastructure and bring to people of NER, VoIP and Broadband services, giving a fillip to business in rural India.

Voice, he said, is the king of revenues, and there are immense prospects on broadband front. ''All this could be achieved with quality of service and reliability. C-DOT in all these years has been on the technology forefront and significantly contributed to the Indian telecom network digitization,'' added Sastry.

The up-gradation program will bring VoIP and other broadband services to the aging fixed line infrastructure, comprising of its MAX/RAX switches. C-DOT has also developed NGN, GPON, which will build broadband pipes to homes, SOHO's and multi-dwelling units.

Key advantage of RAX is that it is designed for the Indian conditions of high ambient temperatures, dust and unreliable power. It requires no air-conditioning and is based on contemporary digital switching technology with microprocessor based controllers.