According to Tapan Sikdar, Minister of State for Communications, DTS has already commissioned 14,000 route km of 2.5 Gigabits per second (Gbps) capacity Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) optical fibre network and is in the process of commissioning another 39,000 km of 2.5 Gbps capacity SDH network by March 2001, subject to timely availability of material.

DTS has taken this decision, in view of rapidly increasing requirements of bandwidth due to the explosive growth of Internet and IT enabled services, which is expected to happen with the opening up of the National Long Distance (NLD) telecom sector from August 15.

In addition, a large number of infrastructure providers, including Railways, PowerGrid Corporations, and other agencies would also be entering the field. This is bound to push down the cost of bandwidth and therefore lead to an increased requirement of the same.

Besides, according to a Telecom Commission Memo circulated on the Transmission capacity requirements of the DTS Long Distance Network, sooner or later, Internet telephony may also be made legal, which would drastically cut down the long distance tariffs and result in a manifold increase in bandwidth requirements.

In order to face the fierce competition in the NLD sector, it would be necessary for the DTS to augment bandwidth in a big way, so as to cut down the cost of provision of bandwidth to an absolute minimum and be prepared to make available bandwidth on demand.

The memo points out that the additional requirements along with the projected increase in traffic due to augmentation of the PSTN, (with the DTS commissioning 3,500 new telephone exchanges this year and a similar number next year), the capacity planned thus far, appears to be grossly inadequate.

Considering the bandwidth requirements projected in the recommendations, the Telecom Commission Memo has proposed to lay down norms for meeting bandwidth requirements and to authorize the circles to plan the network so that they can be commissioned during the next year.

The proposed norms for meeting the bandwidth requirement include provision of 40 Gbps capacity DWDM links covering all the major cities and 30 Level I TAX stations. These could be equipped initially with 10/20 Gbps, which could be expanded after yearly review of bandwidth requirements.

The memo also proposes the provision of at least 140 Mb/STM-1 connectivity to all the DHQs, which would be required considering the requirements of PSTN traffic, the Internet nodes, and other leased circuit requirements. The memo also envisages providing a minimum of 34 MB connectivity to all tehsil headquarters, keeping in view that a minimum of 5 * 2 Mb of streams would be required by each tehsil.

For block headquarters, instructions have been issued to provide 2 MB connectivity to all of the approximately 6000 block headquarters, by March 2001. Taking into account at least one 2 Mb stream for voice traffic, a minimum of 8 Mb connectivity has to be planned for block headquarters.

The memo also envisages a provision of a minimum of 8 Mb connectivity to any other place which has industrial/tourist importance and is not covered under above categories.