Railtel Corporation’s broadband will reach 500,000 households through its Railwire network providing a host of services at the block level in the next two years. The Broadband Highway will involve a three-layer network – state capitals to district headquarters, district to sub-divisional and then to gram panchayats which will be joined to the National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN).

Railwire has also begun to tap the local cable operators focussing on pure-play broadband and VPN services, content and application-driven network. In Eastern India alone, Railtel seeks to cover 36,000 Gram Panchayats and the broadband services include emails, online newspapers, online passport application, tele-medicine, examination results and net surfing for students with a minimum 2Mbps speed.

The Conclave, 10th in a series organised by the Public Relations Council of India (PRCI), conducted a knowledge forum with the theme ‘Digital Now – What Next’.