Net speed at Kerala schools to rise

MALAPPURAM: The schools in the state are all set to discard BSNL’s poor internet connection and shift to the Indian Railway’s RailTel high speed broadband. A project of 'IT at School' is underway to establish Virtual Private Network (VPN) enabled high speed connectivity through the RailTel’s optical fiber network.

“The all new 4 Mbps uninterrupted connectivity will be operational from April throughout 4,876 schools in the state,” says K.P Noufal, Executive Director, IT at School Project.  In the first phase, optical fiber connectivity will be provided to the schools in 12 districts. Idukki and Wayanad districts will be connected later to this network.

“The VPN enabled broadband connectivity will be India’s first digital network of schools,” he said. Apart from the high speed internet connection, the RailTel’s optical fiber cable will provide infrastructure for enabling speed and effective inter communication between the schools. Using this private connectivity, a  huge amount of data and audio or video content sharing is also possible between the schools. The schools also can easily access the contents from the Data Centre without any interruption.

RailTel connection is cost effective as compared to that of BSNL. RailTel charges Rs 28,000 per school to instal the connectivity whereas BSNL’s VPN enabled broadband would cost Rs 42,000.

“We are providing the school campus with High School and Higher Secondary segments single connection that can be operated by each segment in the campus with the same speed. So we need only 3000 connections to connect 4,876 schools,” Noufal said.