Rashida Bakait
MUMBAI: VSNL plans to offer Internet access through its Direct to Home (DTH)
services, by the end of this year. The nodal point of operations will be located
at Delhi. The Rs 80 crore-project will make VSNL the first player in India to
enter the legalized DTH market, said VSNL’s general manager, (Internet) K P
Tiwari.
Speaking to the CNS on the project 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 was the natural choice to
provide Net access on television. However, considering the cost involved for the
consumer, doubts persist over the popularity of its services. Notwithstanding
the fact that the service remains expensive, VSNL would bundle good quality
platform to access TV channels and the Net, simultaneously, he said.
VSNL’s DTH services would do away with the hassles of taking two different
connections and would enable the user to surf channels since it has a capacity
of 7/8 mb. With more channels, it will mean more bandwidth and more speed, he
added.
Tiwari, however, said VSNL would use franchisees to foray the services into
homes. VSNL will focus on metro cities initially and will then try to popularize
the services in other cities, depending on the availability of the franchisees.
The customer will have make payments of Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 as monthly fee for
the service, he added.
Besides launch of DTH services, VSNL's Internet Data Center (IDC) will soon
be operational at Vashi in August. Infrastructure assistance for the IDC 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.