A plan to set up a hi-speed network capable of transmitting real time video and multimedia to cater to the Indian academic and research community was finalised at the meeting held in New Delhi on September 5.

The technological support and some of the finance for the project will come from the Carnegie Mellon University of the US, which is already spearheading a similar programme in North America through The University Network company.A similar company will be incorporated in India in the private sector, with equity from the US company, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Indian universities. The University Network is expected to put up funding to the tune of $40 million.

The Indian company, yet to be christened, will implement a2.5 gigabytes per second (gbps) network for the academic and research community, which will make it the fastest network in the country. This capacity represents a thousand-fold leap from the capacities currently available for such applications.

According to plans tabled at the meeting, the initial phase of the project will mean upgrading the DoT network to create a virtual network between universities, which will run at speeds of 150 megabytes per second. The time set for the initial phase is nine months. Among the institutions that will go on-line first is the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad.

The implementation of the project will be overseen by a technology mission. The setting up of the mission will be facilitated by the IT Task Force and work is expected to begin in two months. The content for the project will be generated by the universities that willuse the network to exchange information and access each other's libraries and information databases.Once the initial backbone of the network is set up, the participating academic institutions are also expected to introduce on-line, off-campus courses to facilitate continuing education in India. This in turn will facilitate upgrading skills by working professionals.