New Delhi: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is to expand rural broadband access in partnership with Nokia Siemens Networks to benefit more than 25,000 Indian villages by providing connectivity to Community Service Centres (CSCs) and other e-Governance locations.<!--more-->

BSNL will deploy Nokia Siemens multi play solutions to deliver with cost effective high speed Internet access and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) among others to its customers.

With the expansion of broadband density in urban and rural areas using ADSL2+ technology, BSNL plans to cover more than 25,000 villages broadband enabled shortly.

India today has approximately 3.4 million broadband connections, of which 1.7 million connections are provided by BSNL alone.

"Partnering with Nokia Siemens Networks would give BSNL an edge over other broadband services providers as it would be the first to cover rural areas on such a wide scale," BSNL CMD Kuldeep Goyal said.

He further added that with high speed Internet service of BSNL, the rural broadband project was poised to bridge digital divide.

"With a population of 700 million, rural India, without a doubt holds the key to the future growth of the telecommunication industry and the long-term economic and social development of the country," Nokia Siemens' Subregion India Head Michael Kuehner said.

The company will also supply customer premises equipment that will enable BSNL to provide speeds of up to 8 Mbps using ADSL2+ for its subscribers over its existing copper infrastructure, BSNL revealed.

BSNL said that the solution will be ready for commercial operation by July 2008 and added that Nokia Siemens is in parallel deploying solution for the urban broadband access for BSNL across 20 circles.
—iGovernment Bureau