BNSL Collaborates with the Government to Bring MPLS to Kerala Public Schools

By David Gitonga, TMCnet Contributing Writer

Recently, it was revealed that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL (News - Alert)) will allow thousands of students in Kerala to improve connectivity by gaining access to an MPLS network. This is courtesy of the project the company and the government have in place in order to deliver a Virtual Private Network (VPN) over broadband to all public schools in the area.

Featuring a 100Mbps leased line connection; the VPN connection based on multi protocol label switching (MPLS) has a backbone of 20Mbps bandwidth. This demanding venture will draw 75 percent of its funding from the Union government under the ICT@School plan. One thing to highlight here is that BSNL will deliver the VPN at a subsidized price, around one fifth less than traditional market rates.

To strengthen the validity of the venture, BSNL and the Indian government signed a memorandum of understanding last week during a press conference initiated by education minister PK Abdu Rabb.

The first beneficiaries of the broadband Internet will be 2,495 high schools, 1,236 higher secondary schools, 377 vocational higher secondary schools and 233 upper primary schools. In addition, about 300 offices in the education department including offices of deputy directors, district education officers and their assistants and some selected 35 Block Resource Centers in Kerala will gain access to the robust VPN.

Allowing the transmission of virtually unlimited data at high speeds over this innovative network makes real-time, online and collaborative learning a reality for these schools. The connection will also allow students to access the dynamic online-based bank of knowledge and even create their own school wikis to allow for the increased r spreading of vital information.

On the other hand, school management activities like dissemination of examination results, the introduction of new students , teacher transfers and hiring can be made more efficient due to the fact that the network can be used to optimize currently available IT technologies.

According to the sentiments of the educational secretary, who spoke during a press conference, the VPN will be up and running in about a month. The government also made it known that this is the first of its kind network in the country to be available to state-owned educational institutes.