The project involves laying a fibre optic network covering 3700 Km in Tamil Nadu. This access infrastructure is to capitalise on the company's proposed Rs 900 crore undersea submarine cable project to connect Chennai and Singapore.

Being implemented with an investment of Rs 300 crore, the Tamil Valay project will cover 200 towns and villages of the state, including Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Trichy, Salem and Tirunelveli. Its cable is based on a technology that combines multiple optical signals so that they can be amplified as a group and transported over a single fibre to increase capacity.

To connect from the main roads to the individual houses, the company will use above the ground cables, said a senior official of the company. It will tie up with local cable operators for the same or do it by itself where that's not possible. The first phase will cover Chennai and Coimbatore. The rest will be completed by end 2002, according to the official. The company is looking at the possibility of extending this network to Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala also. It could either tie-up with leading players in those states or lay the cable themselves.

Speaking at a press conference in Chennai, C Sivasankaran, chairman, Sterling Group, said that the company has applied to the DoT for setting up a landing station in Chennai for its undersea cable project. This was followed by the recent policy announcements allowing Internet service providers to establish their own landing station. The project will be completed within 12 months of getting the permit, he said.

The company plans to increase its 86 Internet hub centres to 210 by March 31, 2001, and 6000 ultimately. It has 2.15 lakh dial-up subscribers and has over one million users. It is also planning to get into basic telephony when it opens up and will apply for a licence to operate in Tamil Nadu.

Signalling the company's foray into education, Sterling has tied up with Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, to offer a 10 module software engineering course in Chennai, costing Rs 1.25 lakh per student.