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  • 14/02/2001

An innovative project is trying to bring internet through underused cables laid along railroad tracks. It involves the Indian Railways and is financed largely by internet service providers. The first effort was started in mid-2000. The aim was to route telephone calls and internet data through cables laid along a 60-km section of railroad between Vijayawada and Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. This would have allowed hundreds of people near each station to be connected to telephones and the internet for the first time, using about 13,500 km of underused cable infrastructure. But the project was pulled back, says Ashok Jhunjhunwala of the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, one of the project leaders. A similar proposal along the Chennai-Trichy railway route is awaiting clearance from the railways.

The project relies on packet switching (in which data is transmitted in bursts as against a continuous telephone connection). The data reaches users through specially modified digital subscriber lines. Between each train station, along electrified tracks, runs a heavy copper cable normally used for voice communications, along with a spare cable installed for train control. Several main routes already have fibre optic cable, the best wire conduit for data transfer. The control cables have never been used for sending signals.

If developed further, the technique could positively revolutionise low-cost telecommunications. Jhunjhunwala stresses the need to connect people at a fraction of the cost in industrialised countries: "This forces creativity that must come from developing nations. Hooking poorer parts of India to the internet or even just to telephones often appears an insurmountable task until elegant solutions such as this appear.' He has founded an organisation, the Telecommunications and Computer Networks Group (www.tenet.res.in), to combat the urban-rural digital divide. He estimates that the railroad project can produce 100,000 internet connections in 4,000 towns in less than two years for less than half the usual cost of connection.

A report in the International Herald Tribune quoted a railroad official as saying: "Exploiting spare capacity helps everyone. The railways will have increased safety with better communications and increased services with computerised reservations system. The excess capacity could be used to bring telecom to rural people.'

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