NEW DELHI: With the government committed to support a broadband thrust and a state area-wide network for data transmission reaching out to the interior, telecom services are poised for a big thrust in different areas like distance education, tele-medicine, e-governance, entertainment and employment generation.
The target set is three million broadband subscribers in the new year, of which two million would be through franchisees of the state-controlled telecom companies, BSNL/MTNL.
The public sector telecom service companies have already advertised for tenders for franchising their broadband services over their existing copper networks using DSL technology. The response has been good and the new year should see launch of these services over a wide swath of the country.
In the private sector Reliance already had announced they would have dedicated broadband services for business. They are planning connectivity to major urban buildings.
With vast business opportunities lying in the broadband sector, which, of course, still experiences technical and financial problems, a seminar on broadband, `Broadband Tech India 2004, is scheduled to open here tomorrow.
Organised by Bharat Exhibitions, the seminar would provide an in-depth examination of broadband technology developments, deployments, challenges, services, and applications with particular relevance to the Indian market. The focus will be on analyzing the business case and real-world experiences of leading service providers.
Dayanidhi Maran, minister for communications & IT will inaugurate the conference, while Telecom Regulatory Authority of India chairman Pradip Baijal will be the guest of honour at the conference.
Some of the key speakers include Arun Kumar Saxena, member (services), department of telecom, SD Saxena, director (finance) of BSNL, PK Garg, wireless advisor, Wireless Planning & Coordination in the communication ministry, Arpita Pal Agrawal, senior manager of Pricewaterhouse Coopers, K Krishna, senior director (marketing) of Hughes Escorts Communications Ltd, Prasad Babu, SE manager,India & SAARC from Juniper Networks and Sujata Dev, director impact & content advisor of Shaf Broadcast Pvt. Ltd.
Zee Business news channel is a broadcast partner.
Headed by Shashi Dharan, Bharat Exhibitions organizes internationally recognized exhibitions and conferences in the areas of broadcast and multimedia, satellite & space technologies, telecommunications, computing & networking and banking technologies
