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| Tuesday, Sep 30, 2008
Over 50 institutions to get 100-MBPS Net connection
The first beneficiaries of National Knowledge Network, which
promises Internet flow in multiples of 10 GB per second
- “Institutions must match the speed,
or there will be no use for the high-speed network”
- Their readiness to upgrade connectivity will
be crucial to getting the initial connection
Chennai: For 50-60 lucky educational institutions across India,
December will see a transformation in their internet experience.
They will be the first beneficiaries of the National Knowledge
Network, which promises an Internet flow in multiples of 10
GB per second at the core, and a minimum of 100-MB per second
connectivity at the end-user level, according to S.V. Raghavan,
chairman of the National Knowledge Network’s technical
advisory committee.
The speeds these figures promise will be phenomenal. To put
it into perspective, most of the information technology giants
along Chennai’s IT highway now use a 20-MBPS connection,
while the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras boasts of a
34-MBPS network. The University of Madras offers a 2-MBPS connection,
the maximum BSNL offers its individual residential subscribers.
The National Knowledge Network project will break all such bounds.
“In India, no one seems to have heard of anything beyond
2 MBPS. There is a mindset that ‘I don’t need 100
MBPS’,” rues Dr. Raghavan, who is also a professor
at IIT-M.
It is essential to shatter that mindset because institutions
must be prepared to do their bit to prepare for the knowledge
network bonanza. “Most important is their psychological
readiness. Then the internal distribution network of the institution
needs to be upgraded. The knowledge network will only come to
the doorstep; the institution needs to match our speed, or there
will be no use for our high-speed network,” Dr. Raghavan
says.
Varsity’s plans
Institutions’ readiness to upgrade their connectivity
will be taken into account in determining who gets the initial
NKN connection. There is much to be done to meet the project’s
standards. At the University of Madras, there are plans to move
from 2 MBPS to 10 MBPS for research by the year-end. “We
have the basic fibre-optic network infrastructure in place,”
says Vice-Chancellor S. Ramachandran. “It will simply
be a matter of increasing speeds.”
The university has just connected its Chepauk campus women’s
hostel to its internet network, providing five computer systems
for a free 24-hour facility. The remaining five hostels will
also be connected by the next week, under a Rs. 2-crore initiative,
over the past two years, to improve connectivity infrastructure
and resources.
The knowledge network project could vault the institution’s
Virtual University project to the next level. “Currently,
it’s a satellite-based system. But we could ultimately
look at making the video classes and interactive facilities
available on the Internet if we are given this kind of speed,”
Dr. Ramachandran says.
Such projects are the rationale behind the knowledge network.
“When you think in terms of a countrywide classroom, with
multiple flows of audio and video, with lectures from across
the country being shared by many people, high speeds are needed,”
says Dr. Raghavan. The peak traffic using such multimedia-intensive
applications will overwhelm low-capacity lines. “Multimedia
applications are easier to consume for the modern learner, and
there are many educational resources already available, with
tech-savvy educationists preparing more…Once they get
used to this, they won’t settle for less,” he predicts.
In fact, 100 MBPS is the minimum speed on offer—those
who need more, for research or e-learning projects, could soon
get more.
The government allotted Rs. 100 crore in the last budget to
the Ministry of Information Technology to establish the National
Knowledge Network. By mid-December, Dr. Raghavan expects the
core network and distribution to be in place, with connections
to the early institutions. Overall, the first phase is expected
to cover 1,000 universities, research institutions, colleges,
and even schools across the country.
“This is a pioneering scheme in India. Some 10 GB links
are available, but a network with this kind of reach is new,”
he says.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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