New Delhi: India’s 750-odd lawmakers residing in the national capital will soon get Wi-Fi at their official residences as the state-run Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) is currently working on to meet high-speed data access needs of netas.

MTNL is expecting to complete the Wi-Fi rollout for the Parliamentarians covering both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members by December end, a top MTNL executive who is administering the initiative told ET.

The capital cost of the project is Rs 40 crore which is fully funded by the Centre that include fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and Wi-Fi equipment.

The state-owned telco has already connected the residences of the members of both Houses with fibre for an access of upto 10 megabit per second (Mbps) data speed.

“We are on track to complete this project at stipulated timeframe while we are procuring the required equipment from a systems integrator,” MTNL General Manager Enterprise Business, AK Agarwal said.

Ahmedabad-based systems integrator Sanghvi Infotech Private Limited (SIPL) that offers enterprise and wireless solutions, has bagged the MTNL contract to supply network equipment for the government-driven initiative.

The Wi-Fi bridging will be done by the systems integrator which is supplying hardware components such as controllers, access points and authentication systems and is also configuring MP’s computing systems and taking care of network security to prevent any untoward Cyber activity.

“The project include 3,500 access points for nearly 750 residences of the members of both Houses with 3 to 4 access points at each location,” said Sanghvi Infotech founder and director Jigar Sanghvi, adding that these nodes would be controlled by MTNL’S Network Operations Centre (NOC).

The state- owned operator is also working on a public Wi-Fi project in Delhi on a revenue-sharing model with private vendors and according to the official, the telco is issuing a purchase order to procure equipment soon.

Source: ETTelecom