Thiruvananthapuram: Five companies have expressed interest in providing bandwidth for the Kerala Fiber Optical Network (K Phone) project. Following the tender submission for the availability of Internet Leased Line (ILL), the US company Sifi Network and Mukesh Ambani’s Geo were outsourced. From the public sector, there are BSNL, Powergrid Corporation and Railtel.
The financial bid will only be opened tomorrow as the companies have been given till tomorrow to clear their doubts on the technical documents submitted. Sify and Geo are wholesalers in the region. The agreement is to provide 10 GB bandwidth at K Phone Network Operating Center (NOC) at Kochi Kakkanad Info Park and Data Recovery Center at Pattom Vaidyuthi Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram. This bandwidth will reach offices and homes through service providers through the K network. K Phone had applied for an Internet Service Provider (ISP) license to become a service provider.
The application has been rescheduled due to technical issues raised by the Union Ministry of Telecom. The first phase of the project was promised to be completed today. But the tender to provide K-phone connection to BPL families has not been confirmed for a month. The list of BPL families to be connected has not been handed over by the Local Government Department.
A total of 30,157 km of cable will be laid, but due to road development in various districts, more than 5,000 km will be laid for the time being. Do not lay the cable at a distance. The remaining 21,720 km. The distance and 24,918 offices were completed until yesterday. Dr. Santoshbabu, MD, Kerala State IT Infrastructure Limited, said that K Phone is now operational even though there are a few offices left.