Satellite bandwidth connectivity of Andaman crosses 1 Gbps

   The Lt. Governor took a review of the developments and overall improvements of telecommunication facilities in A&N Islands with R.N. Jha, CGM, BSNL at Raj Niwas today. The CGM conveyed that on the auspicious occasion of Ram Navami, A&N Telecom Circle commissioned a direct 20 Mbps satellite connectivity from Campbell Bay and Car Nicobar Islands each to mainland exclusively for providing broadband services to these remote Islands and with this broadband services has been rolled out in Campbell Bay. Earlier, direct connectivity of 20 Mbps of Havelock Island with Kolkata was exclusively provided for the improvement of broadband services in this Island. He further said, augmentation of satellite bandwidth by 1 Gbps to these Islands has been achieved and with this, there has been gradual improvement in quality of services both in voice as well as data services. Shri Jha informed that in last one year, there has been a remarkable increase in volume of traffic in data services. He mentioned that per day data download has increased around 3 times in March 2016 in comparison to September 2014, overall data download per day has increased to around 3000 Giga Byte from around 1000 Giga Byte.  He further said by taking certain measures such as integration of bandwidth, there will be further improvement and the data download figure will certainly improve in days to come.

   Broadband connections have increased by about 1400 customers and mobile active subscribers base has increased by over 22,000 in last one year. The total subscriber base of BSNL is over 2.6 lakh and it is growing consistently with daily addition of around 150 subscribers in these Islands.

 The CGM also informed that with the commissioning of the core equipments such as MPBN routers and SGSN (Serving GPRS Support Node), bandwidth utilisation efficiency has improved significantly. Work for the development of telecom services, particularly the rolling out of broadband services in remote Islands are going on as per schedule. Besides, direct satellite connectivities, exclusively, for broadband services in Havelock, Car Nicobar and Campbell Bay, BSNL is going to provide direct satellite connectivities to the remote Islands such as Neil, Kamorta, Little Andaman and Long Islands, by June 2016. Further, to ensure interruption free data services in North and Middle Andaman, direct satellite connectivity of 60 Mbps is going to be implemented at Mayabunder in a week's time.

   CGM, BSNL appraised the Lt. Governor that BSNL is giving due importance for improvement of data services in these Islands. BSNL has planned to install and commission, state of the art 80 BTS - 3G BTSs to provide full coverage of 3G services in Port Blair so as to minimise the issue of call drops. At present, CGM admitted, that there is a deficiency in 3 G services coverage and as such advised the subscribers to latch their smart mobile phones on 2G mode for voice calls. BSNL has also planned to install around 56 new 2G BTSs in these Islands to provide complete coverage with mobile services. The CGM also briefed that a full fledged WiFi services are going to be introduced at most of the must see places of A&N Islands in this financial year. 

  During the meeting with the Lt. Governor, the CGM conveyed highest appreciation and gratitude to the Lt. Governor and the A&N Administration for extending full support and help to BSNL in their efforts to develop robust and reliable telecommunication facilities in these Islands.