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Offers `high-speed and secure' network connectivity

NEW FACILITY: The Union Minister for Communications & IT, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, and the BT Chief Executive Officer, Mr Andy Green, at the inauguration of BT's 2i CN capability in Chennai on Friday — Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai March 23 BT plc (British Telecommunications) opened its Chennai node offering companies route their data, voice and video in a `high-speed and secure' connectivity network.

Mr Andy Green, CEO, BT Global Services, said the `multi-protocol label switching' node establishes its Internet protocol backbone in India. This is part of BT's 21st century network programme to help companies put their data, voice and video in the `high-speed and secure' connectivity network.

Addressing the inaugural function here, he said, "We have created an information super highway." This node is connected to BT's Singapore node, and in turn to BT's nodes across the world.

Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology, inaugurated BT's Chennai node.

Prime beneficiaries

According to a press release, companies such as Sutherland, Xansa, Genpact, Cognizant, Tata Consultancy Services, Satyam, HCL, Wipro and Infosys would be prime beneficiaries of the BT 21CN Chennai Node, The node, which would help companies connect with their operations across the world, has a total bandwidth capacity of 2.5 gbps with scalability of up to 10 gbps.

Additional nodes

Additional nodes in Bangalore and Hyderabad will go live this month, with other new nodes due for launch this year in Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata.

BT accounts for around 2 per cent of India's IT and BPO exports and is planning to source more over the years. It spends $500 million annually in India and Indian exports are worth $25 billion (hence, the 2 per cent), said Mr Green.

BT Asia Pacific has around 15,000 employees (working directly and indirectly), and most of them are in India. It aims to add around 6,000 in India by 2008.

It hopes to have revenue of around £250 million by 2009 from India, from less than £10 million now, he said.

In February, BT was granted international long distance and national long distance licences by the Department of Telecommunications.

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