Mobile users in the country could now look forward to uninterrupted connectivity on their phones. Indian telecom operators like Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel, BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited), VSNL (Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited), and Vodafone are in talks with telecommunication equipment manufacturers Nortel and Cisco to provide 40 Gbps DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) technology on the existing optic fibers.
DWDM is a technology that puts data from different sources together on an optic fiber, with each signal carried at the same time on its own separate light wavelength. Hitesh Lokhandwala, managing director, Nortel, told FE ?Currently, operators in India use 10 Gbps DWDM technology. We are currently in talks with Indian telecom operators and expect them to adopt the 40 Gbps DWDM technology by the next two quarters.?
When this technology, which is a combination of both hardware and software, will be adopted, each wavelength will become 40 Gbps from 10 Gbps. This will quadruple the existing bandwidth to support the increasing number of users and demand for broadband.
Vish Iyer, VP-service provider, Cisco, said, ?We haven?t brought this technology to India until now because we didn?t see the demand for bandwidth going up to such a high level. But now, every major telecom operator in India is looking at it, as it is quite affordable. And with the increasing number of submarine cables being laid, we will see more deployment of this technology in future.?
Nareshchandra Singh, principal research analyst, Gartner says, ?The increase in bandwidth on the existing optic fiber will reduce the capital expenditure of operators. It will also enable operators to use less equipment and thus post low operational costs. This, in turn, will lead to reduced service cost to users.?