Arasu Cable TV to be roped in for connectivity
Chennai accounts for nearly 20 per cent of its total 5,000-odd clientele, still a very low number compared to the private service provider's concentration. (PHoto: PTI/File)
Chennai: Residents of multi-storied apartments on the city’s fringes no longer need to rue the fact that they are out of range of most broadband service providers. Railwire, a unit of Indian Railway, has come up with solutions to their broadband problems.
Railwire, which started selling its excess bandwidth on a commercial scale since a little over a year in the city, has started widening its market, specifically targeting corporate clients. And it believes that high-end residential colonies are their ticket to catch the big corporate client. Chennai accounts for nearly 20 per cent of its total 5,000-odd clientele, still a very low number compared to the private service provider’s concentration.
Having roped in local cable TV operators and individual franchisees for its operation, Railwire will soon sign an agreement to partner Arasu Cable TV, Mr R. Bhaskaran, group general manager, told DC. The rail tracks, or rather, an optic fibre cable running parallel to it, are the backbone of Railwire’s network (it runs to a length of 45,000 km). The distribution lines will be routed from there.
“Though Railwire may be marginally costlier than other service providers, once experienced, customers never leave us,” Mr Bhaskaran said. Railwire claims to maintain a contention ratio of 1:4 (number of connections and division of bandwidth from a line).
“If it’s a 2mbps line, we give only four connections at the rate of 256kbps each. If three people don’t use at any given point in time, the entire 4mbps speed goes to the fourth subscriber. If four people use it simultaneously, we increase the capacity” he adds.
( Source : dc )
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