RailTel's Director of Network Planning and Marketing, Sanjai Kumar says a focused approach will catalyse the ongoing development of RailTel's community lead broadband internet service - RailWire. He spoke about three specific areas of focus in particular:
Network planning: This means fine-tuning, and up-gradation of network operations that cater to RailWire's increasing subscriber base and the subsequent increase in data utilisation. This will ensure subscribers, even in rural areas, will enjoy better availability and higher speeds from their RailWire connections.
Presence: RailTel has installed RailWire connectivity in 6,000 out of the total 7,000 railway stations across the country. Notably, 80% of those stations are in rural areas and that opens a large door of opportunity to provide broadband connections to the surrounding villages. He added that, as a part of Bharat Net project that aims to connect 6 lakh villages in 1,000 days, RailTel has requested permission from Government of India to start a pilot project in Jharkhand and Maharashtra. The approval for Jharkhand alone would connect 30,000 villages!
Sanjai Kumar asserted that, by 2022, RailWire plans reaching a total figure of 10 lakh subscribers pan India.
MSPs: Appointing MSPs in all the states across India, RailTel is at the forefront of enabling RailWire as a brand. Additionally, he sent these appealing message to:
Subscribers: "We assure you that RailTel is willing to learn from the past to improve the future. We also reassure you that RailWire aims to smoothen our backhaul issues and will continue to provide high quality bandwidth."
ANPs: "You are our partners and a very important part of our ecosystem. We assure you that you will grow with us and together, we will set a model for others to follow."
With a fresh viability gap funding of INR 19,041 crores covering 16 states announced for Bharat Net Project this month by the Government, he added,
"Our ability to further innovate on more efficient and effective PPP models will be key in reaching our network to the Gram Panchayat, Village Council and Village level as we penetrate deeper in the market geographically, making high speed broadband available to more Indians."