Kingfisher To Provide Internet On Flight?

Not to long ago we blogged about how Kingfisher had added mobile booking for its tickets. Now it seems kingfisher wants to take technology and connectivity to the skies. It has roped in Honeywell International Inc., manufacturer of civil and military avionics to enable telephony and internet access on flight. Kingfisher has reportedly signed a deal worth $100 million (Rs399 crore) for the same.

Even internationally Southwest Airlines recently announced that it would be providing broadband internet on flight through satelittes.

I think this is a very interesting move (if it does come through for the flight passenger!) by KingFisher who seems to understand its target audience and market needs very well. After all most busy professionals in today’s day and age need connectivity 24/7.

Infact I remember hearing Ramlingam Raju Satyam Founder stating in Red Herring summit last year that he was onboard a flight for 30 days in a year! Thats the amount of travel these guys do. I too (im just a budding startup entrepreneur) did 7 flight trips last year! And if you ask me id love free internet on flight! But according to me if kingfisher does launch this it could one of their most sought after premium service.

Source : WATBlog

DLF Plans To WiFi its buildings

Reality major DLF has said that it will be providing WiFi access across its buildings. The WiFi connectivity will be provided by O-Zone.

The Internet is a necessity now for many professionals. I have been wondering for long about the builders providing the Internet connections along with the electricity and water connection. This makes a lot of sense in the newer buildings for the upwardly mobile IT population. I, for one, cannot do without checking my emails and blogs.

The step by DLF is the beginning of what all the other players will be following soon.

The only glitch is the connection speed. In case of one connection shared between the entire building, the bandwidth of the individual connection can go down considerably.

Source : WATBlog

Bharti joins five global telcos for US-Japan undersea cable

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel has joined hands with five international companies including internet giant Google to construct a new high-bandwidth, sub-sea cable system linking the US and Japan.

These two companies along with Global Transit, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet and SingTel have formed the Unity Bandwidth Consortium which will together invest about $300 million to construct the undersea link.

This new consortium is yet another step towards improving redundancy with resilient networks, especially in the wake of the recent crisis when undersea links were damaged off the coast of Egypt, disrupting internet connections in many countries including India. With multiple undersea cables in place, Bharti Airtel can hedge itself by redirecting traffic via other undersea links.

This is the third major initiative by Bharti Airtel in the recent past aimed at becoming a major player in the international bandwidth business. Last month, Bharti Airtel along with eight leaders of the global telecommunications industry including VSNL, had signed a formal construction and maintenance agreement to build a fibre-optic submarine cable that stretches from India to France via the Middle East.

Last year, Bharti joined the Telecom Malaysia (TM) led 17-member consortium of telecommunication companies to set up an Asia-America gateway (AAG) — the first submarine-cable system linking South-East Asia directly to the US.

Bharti Airtel president for Enterprise Services David Nishball told ET that this was the first consortium in which the company was partnering a non-telecom player (Google). Mr Nishball also hinted at similar deals in future. “We are continuing to expand our capacity. This will not be the last cable we are partnering to build,” he said. Mr Nishball also said that against the traditional model where consortium partners shared the capacity, Unity would follow a different model. “The consortium is offering ownership and management of individual fiber pairs to its members,” he added.

The consortium has selected NEC Corporation and Tyco Telecommunications to construct and install the system. Construction will begin immediately, with initial capacity targeted to be available in the first quarter of 2010. This also marks the fourth major Pacific link between Asia and the US that is currently being built.

The other three under construction are the Trans-Pacific Express Cable System connecting the US, China, Taiwan and the Republic of Korea which will enter service in August 2008, the AAG which will start operations from the first quarter of 2009, and Reliance Communications cable network, FLAG.

Source : EconomicTimes

Bharti consortium to set up undersea cable linking US with Asia

NEW DELHI: Telecom giant Bharti Airtel on Tuesday said it would set up a new undersea cable linking the United States with Asia in partnership with five global telecom firms.

The undersea cable, Unity, would entail an investment of 300 million dollar and would address broadband demand by providing capacity to sustain the growth in data and internet traffic between Asia and the US, Bharti said in a statement.

Besides Bharti, the consortium includes the US's internet search company Google, Japan's telecom company KDDI Corp, Malaysia's Global Transit Ltd, Singapore's Pancet and Singtel.

The construction would begin immediately and would be ready for commercial use in the first quarter of 2010.

The consortium has selected NEC Corporation and Tyco Telecommunications to construct and install the system.

Bharti already has two international landing stations in Chennai that connects two submarine cable systems-i2i to Singapore and SEA-ME-WE to Singapore and Europe.

"This investment is in line with our strategy to extend our international footprint across the globe to provide seemless connectivity to our customers through partnerships with leading global companies. The Unity cable would address the demand for increased bandwidth between Asia and the US as more and more services migrate to an online environment," Airtel Enterprise Services President David Nishball said.

This partnership would also provide alternate routes to meet the demands of our customers for increased levels of network resiliency and redundancy, he added.

Source : EconomicTimes

Broadband (≥ 256 Kbps download) Growth

Total Broadband subscribers base has reached 3.24 million by the end of January 2008 as compared to 3.13 million by the end of December 2007.



Source : http://www.trai.gov.in/trai/upload/PressReleases/542/pr22feb08no20.pdf

Free Internet On Shatabdi, Rajdhani Trains?

I wonder when the announcements will be followed up with actual deployment: Business Standard reports that the Indian Railways is expectged to launch free Internet on select Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains, and DTH on specific tourist trains. Free? Maybe they’re getting someone to sponsor the service...The other announcements in the report, we’ve already covered before, including plans for wireless hotspots at 50 stations, and cybercafes at 82 stations. The Cybercafe network is in collaboration with Sify and VSNL.

Source : contentSutra.com

Alcatel-Lucent signs submarine cable network contract

NEW DELHI: Alcatel-Lucent has signed a turnkey contract with a consortium of nine telecom players to deploy a new submarine cable network linking Mumbai to Marseilles in France, which is over 13,000 km away.

The new submarine cable network meets the need for enhanced backhaul communication capabilities along the India-Western Europe route as well as for increased capacity to support high bandwidth broadband services, according to a statement by the company.

The companies that form the consortium are Bharti, Etisalat, France Telecom, Ogero Telecom, PTCL, STC, Telecom Egypt Telecom Italia Sparkle and VSNL. With the completion expected in the last quarter of 2009, the network will help support the global traffic growth driven by the need of peer-to-peer IP based services including video applications, broadband internet, downloading, voice and video calling.

Source : EconomicTimes