Ericsson launches rural broadband project

Chennai, Sep 21: In a bid to bring the benefits of the internet access, especially to the rural people, Telecom major Ericsson launched the 'Gramjyoti Rural Broadband Project'.

Talking to newspersons here today, Company Vice President (Marketing and Strategy) P Balaji said the scheme was the country's first HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) powered rural broadband demo network that delivers the benefit of 3G across 18 villages and 15 towns in the State.

"The project is an attempt to showcase and introduce benefits of Wireless CDMA (WCDMA) technology in rural India, which will help connect communities to high-speed internet services for the first time," he said.

Mr Balaji said the Company had taken the existing GSM network and upgrade it to the next level HSPA to provide broadband access to these villages.

According to the company plans, Ericsson would provide high-speed Internet, access to a number of services like telemedicine, e-education, e-governance, online local information, voice and video call services, Live TV and entertainment, online local information like local rates for agricultural products, he said.

The project was supported by partners including Apollo Hospitals, Hand in Hand- an NGO, Edurite, One97, CNN and Cartoon Network.

Mr Balaji said the initiative seeks to demonstrate how WCDMA/HSPA Technology could be a major catalyst for social and economic empowerment in the region and help increase productivity and quality of life.

"We are looking at how we can take this to over one lakh villages across India," he added.

UNI