Equipment delay hampers BSNL's Internet plan

The second phase of the National Internet Backbone (NIB-II) of Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), which was to put India on par with advanced nations, is likely to be delayed by another six months as the consortium of vendors led by Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd (TCIL) has failed to deliver the required equipment.

While acknowledging the delay in the Rs 120-crore NIB-II project, BSNL executives said the PSU would not initiate legal action against the consortium as the latter had presented valid reasons.

But the delay will impact the broadband plans of the PSU. The company had planned to roll out its broadband network across 198 cities to cover 6 lakh subscribers. It had also planned to deploy multi-gigabyte, multi-protocol Internet protocol infrastructure to provide voice, data and video through this backbone.

According to BSNL executives, the delivery was partly delayed owing to a delay in supply of equipment by IBM Corp, which is one of the vendors of the project.

IBM was to supply the equipment, mainly storage servers, by May 30. Even though the company had delivered some of the equipment, the major chunk is yet to be delivered, sources added.

When contacted, TCIL said the consortium was delivering the equipment as per schedule. IBM, too, denied that it was responsible for the delay. "We are also on time and there is no delay. We are not aware of any showcause notice from BSNL," an IBM executive told Business Standard.

When functional, NIB-II will support 'always on' broadband access for residential and business users, content-based services, video-multicasting, video-on-demand and interactive gaming, audio- and video-conferencing, IP telephony, distance learning and messaging. Besides, subscribers will be able to access services through subscriber service selection system (SSSS) portal. Stalled plans

BSNL to not take legal action against the consortium

Delivery partly delayed due to delay in supply of equipment by IBM Corp, one of the vendors of the project

TCIL, IBM Corp say no delay from their side