Confirming this, Mr D. Sunderarajan, chief financial officer, Fascel told FE Express: "We will complete the laying of fibre by June next year before the onset of monsoon." At Rs 4 lakh per kilometer (cost of laying fibre) the project entails a cost of Rs 80 crore. "This (Rs 80 crore) will be part of our project cost for the year," Mr Sunderarajan said. The company has pegged its capex for the next financial year at Rs 150 crore. Of the total, the 225 kilometer Ahmedabad-Rajkot segment has already been completed and work is in progress on the 425 kilometerRajkot-Porbandar and Rajkot-Gandhidham segments. The company has set a target of 1,400 kilometer by December this year.

Fascel has already installed a significant microwave network in the state for handling the cellular traffic in the state. The optical fibre cable network now seeks to replace that. The microwave network appears to be a stop gap arrangement for the company, which may be relocated in other parts of the state eventually. Most of the Indian cellular service providers today are using a network which is predominantly microwave. They have only just started leasing capacity from the DOT. "An optical fibre network has an edge over microwave as it can handle unlimited voice and data and other applications, and is certainly more reliable," says a telecom analyst with a foreign broking firm in Mumbai.