Hughes, Comat tie up for rural biz centres

Chennai, Feb 5: Hughes India has signed a contract with Comat Technologies to supply 10,000 broadband satellite terminals along with nationwide HughesNet satellite services and applications, to rural business centres across multiple States in India.

In a release here today, Comat President Sriram Raghavan said "the company, having strong experience in delivering e-governance solutions and services in partnership with various States, has established an unique blend of content and delivery that allowed the concept of a Community Services Centre (CSC) to become a reality.

"Together with Hughes, the company is now gearing up to deploy these CSCs throughout India's rural regions." Huges President and CEO Pradman Kaul said "this agreement demonstrates our collective ability to eliminate the so-called "digital divide" in rural India, combining our advanced equipment technology, HughesNet satellite broadband services and Comat's e-governance applications.

"Customers everywhere will soon enjoy high-speed internet access, and a growing range of e-governance and other value-added applications." The Hughes and Comat consortium won the right to roll out the kiosks in Sikkim, Tripura and various parts of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Uttarakhand through competitive bidding process for the Union Government's CSCs, it said.

UNI