PM Modi to inaugurate Chennai-Port Blair submarine cable; big boost to Andaman & Nicobar

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to inaugurate submarine Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) connecting Chennai and Port Blair on Monday, August 10, via video conferencing, an official release said on Friday.  submarine cable will also connect Port Blair to Swaraj Dweep (Havelock) island, Little Andaman, Car Nicobar, Great Nicobar, Kamorta, Long Island, and Rangat.

new network connectivity will enable delivery of faster and more reliable mobile and landline telecom services to Andaman and Nicobar Islands, on par with or parts of India. PM Modi had laid foundation stone for this project on 30th December 2018 at Port Blair.

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submarine OFC link will deliver bandwidth of 2 x 200 Gigabits per second (Gbps) between Chennai and Port Blair, and 2 x 100 Gbps between Port Blair and or islands.

" provision of reliable, robust, and high-speed telecom and Broadband facilities in se Islands will be a landmark achievement from viewpoint of consumers, as well as for strategic and governance reasons. 4G mobile services, which were constrained due to limited backhaul bandwidth provided via satellite will also see a major improvement" release said.

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Boons of telecom and Broadband connectivity

Improved telecom and Broadband connectivity will promote tourism and employment generation in Islands, give an impetus to ecomy and raise standards of living, release added. Better connectivity will also promote delivery of e-Governance services such as telemedicine and tele-education. "Small enterprises will benefit from opportunities in e-commerce, while educational institutions will utilize enhanced availability of bandwidth for e-learning and kwledge sharing. Business Process Outsourcing services and or medium and large enterprises will also reap benefits of better connectivity" release stated.

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project is funded by Centre through Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) under Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications. About 2300 Kms of Submarine OFC cable has been laid at a cost of about Rs 1224 Crore, and project has been completed as per schedule. It was executed by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) are Technical Consultants.

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Im PTI