Maran welcomes Cisco''s $1-billion investment in India

Our Corporate Bureau
19 October 2005

Mumbai: Cisco Systems and the ministry of communication and information technology, have announced that they will collaborate on the ''national e-governance plan''. Cisco will also support BSNL''s telecom network evolution by establishing Asia Pacific''s first IP ''next generation network'' (NGN) Lab for BSNL in Chennai. Cisco will invest a combined $10 million on these two projects.

Thanking John Chambers, Csco''s president and CEO John Chambers, currently in India on a three-day visit, for the Company''s investment of over $1.1 billion, communications and IT minister Dayanidhi Maran said, "Our association with Cisco Systems complements the government''s unique focus and vision for creating a broadband infrastructure and a network backbone enabling the government to connect with its citizens. We are confident that Cisco System''s networking technologies will have a positive impact on the productivity, efficiency and the GDP of the country."

Maran and Chambers had met earlier this year in San Jose, California, to discuss ways for Cisco to collaborate with the government''s e-governance plans and efforts to bridge the "digital divide" by providing connectivity across India.

Cisco will establish the ''SWAN advanced technology enablement programme'' and provide networking equipment for establishing a ''SWAN advanced technology centre of excellence'' in state government headquarters in India, to bring them under the coverage of the national e-governance.

These centres will serve as pilots / proof of concept labs as technology demonstratorsfor technologies like LAN / WAN, IP communications, wireless and security. They will also serve as test beds for state governments to test applications and services before they are rolled out on the SWAN network.

In addition to this, Cisco will set up an IP-based next generation network (NGN) lab with BSNL in Chennai. The lab will support BSNL''s telecom network evolution by providing an environment to test services before rolling out on the actual network.