Telecom Lead Asia: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has selected Hughes Communications India to connect over 3,000 branches with broadband satellite network and managed services.
The value of the contract is Rs 33 crore for a period of five years.
Satellite is one of the fastest growing broadband technologies in India. Hughes is playing a significant role in facilitating the expansion of the banking sector in India.
Hughes, according to TRAI data, has reported Rs 23.69 crore from VSAT business during the quarter ended September 2012.
C-Edge, a joint venture between Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and State Bank of India (SBI), has selected Hughes’ HN System for a turnkey networking solution and services to connect various District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) and State Apex banks in the country.
The first phase will be covering the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The managed services comprise over 3,000 HN9200 very small aperture terminals (VSATs) and shared Network Operations Centre (NOC) services, including satellite bandwidth, hosting, backhaul, and end-to-end IPSec management.
Partho Banerjee, president and managing director of HCIL, said: “Our managed services solution is unique in providing high availability connectivity at all sites by employing broadband satellite as the primary technology and backup over other wireless technologies.”
Approximately 140 banks have expressed their willingness to participate in the project and signed the necessary Memoranda of Agreement with NABARD. This strategy involves a major transformation of the current information technologies and a significant reengineering of the bank’s business processes.
Hughes’ solution is scalable, enabling potential expansion network to more than 400 banks.
