Launched in
the month of September 2003
and within two years of the
commencement of its operation it has approximately
30,000 customers at
Kolkata, districts and rural West Bengal, Sikkim. The Internet Service has been distributed so
far
through
50 master control rooms / multi service operators to
reach
common people at a very affordable price. The Concept
was very indigenous
and innovative for distribution
of the Internet service at all the
corners of the State. Besides, apart
from residential customers over 50
BIG demanding corporate customers
are
connected directly in Salt Lake Electronics Complex and several
Corporate clients through Cable Operators in districts with 100% retention
proves service reliability
and high Network Uptime
commitments.
Background
VSNL
launched its Internet Service in the country in August 1995 and was
the lone player. In the year 1998 Govt. of India announced
ISP Policy and made Private players to participate.
Market witnessed high fatality rate due to cutthroat competition
for survival and only Innovative could sustain at that situation. A Business plan was made and Webel,
the nodal agency of Government of West Bengal for Development of
Information Technology, Electronics and Telecommunication Industries, took up the
Challenge in June 2003 to go in for ISP Project with a different
concept of distribution.
Commercial services launched within a record time in September 2003
and experienced a Great Success.
 Objective
Primarily
to provide quality Internet Bandwidth to the common people as well as Corporate,
Educational Institutions,
Hospitals and many other organizations across the State at an affordable
price keeping a very high uptime. In a nutshell our aim is to benchmark
our facilities and skill sets to ' Best of Breed ' international
standards and create
platform for Internet Service anywhere everywhere.
Secondarily
providing quality Internet service across the rural areas to
increase social & economic
stability and opportunity, new channels for learning, better
communication with Govt. and improvements in health &
welfare. Moreover this is
going to be the first step to make the rural India the back office of
urban India including tele-education, tele-medicine,
e-governance, entertainment as well as employment generation by
way of high speed access
to information and web based communication. The investment for
network devices is minimal.
Scaling up of Bandwidth does not require any further investment and time.
The thought process is in line with the India Government IT Policy to
spread Internet Service everywhere.
Inspiration
& Conceptual Architecture
 In our
country Internet access is only 0.4% mainly because of
non-availability of last mile infrastructure. There was no proper
infrastructure
available to reach Broadband Internet access to the customer
premises. Only narrow band
Internet can be available through BSNL’s dial-up. Also
Corporates and SOHO segment need high cost Network
Equipment to avail the Service.
Realizing the need of good quality Internet Service in the city as
well as in the rural West Bengal and Sikkim Webel took
initiative to spread Internet Service at a price within reach in an
innovative way.
It
was envisaged that Cable TV operators could be roped in to overcome
last mile headache by
giving them a business model and OFC network concept to provide
Internet access over Ethernet to the end users.
Some
Achievements
 Internet Service at Gangasagar Island
during Gangasagar Mela Event 2004 :-
First time the pilgrims and the
common people of Gangasagar Mela experienced the
taste of Internet Service. 120 kms link was established via
Wireless Radio. Video Conferencing was also
made possible between Mela Ground, Sagar Island, and Babughat, Kolkata.
Broadband Service at Salt Lake
Stadium during India - Japan football match September 2004 :-
First time in India journalists from India and Japan able to send real
time match reports using our Broadband Services through Wi-Fi zone
created at Stadium.
Penetration at rural West Bengal
and Sikkim:- Opening
up Community Information Service Center ( CISC ) with Gramin Sanchar
Society ( GRASSO ) to reach root level people anticipating growth of
GDP based on Information technology. |
