Mauritius: Bharat Telecom

Bharat Telecom Ltd (BTL) is a private limited company incorporated in August 2010 in Mauritius to provide FTTH (Fibre to the Home) service to Mauritian households”. IPTV and High Speed Broadband Internet are some of the services that the company will introduce on this platform.

BTL believes that its digital infrastructure described by the term GEPON (Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Network) will act as a carrier backbone for many other service providers both existing and start-up enterprises in the Gaming and WebTV business.

Mr Baljinder Sharma, Director at Bharat Telecom Ltd states, “BTL has the vision to connect every home and office in the country with a fibre network”.

Mr Anil Gujjalu, Chief Operating Officer of Bharat Telecom says that the work has been ongoing since year 2011 and we have now reached the deployment phase which means that shortly houses and offices will be connected through 100Mbps fibre optic cables thus assuring the availability of high speed Internet and other value added services at very affordable prices.

“As previously announced, the basic bundle comprising of some 40 IPTV channels and a 2Mbps Internet connectivity will be available at a monthly subscription of around Rs280”. This is the start up package that we propose to introduce on commercial basis within the next six to eight weeks depending on the time it takes to get tariffs approved from the regulatory authority.

“We know that many Mauritians have put on hold their Internet connection plans and we would like to re-assure them that the service will soon be available in certain areas in the Plaine Wilhems region”. Dr Choudhari, whose company is responsible for technology advisory and infrastructure roll out adds that the project had some initial delay but our objective is to provide on-demand fibre connection to large majority of homes over the next eighteen months. Fibre connections are presently being tested in three locations and several more will be put to test starting next week particularly in Quatre Bornes and Rose Hill.

“Along with high speed Internet connection, we will also be offering a wide range of interactive TV channels through IPTV [Internet Protocol TV]” informs Mr Gujjalu. We should be revolutionising the market shortly with our technology.

Dr Choudhari explains that the technology being brought to the houses from the main Network Operation Centre located at Ebene through a core network of 10 Gbps underground Fibre optic cable estimated to be about 200km. The aerial network that is utilizing CEB poles will be approximately 2,700km consisting of both 24 core and 1 core fibre.

Interestingly, BTL will, for the first time also launch a new method of fibre laying known as HDD (Horizontal Directional Drilling) that drills underground without any need for road excavation. The HDD machine has already been imported in Mauritius and will be seen working on the roads from next week onwards after permission from Road Development Authority has been obtained.

The Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) will consist of an Optical Network Unit (ONU) with a Wi-Fi connection and a Set-Top Box (STB) which will cater for IPTV and Internet Access.

Dr Choudhari informs that this FTTH technology is very environmental friendly and the quantity of materials to be used when the whole Mauritius is connected is as low as 80 Tons, including all equipment and cables and the power requirement will be less than 20kw for the whole island-wide network.

“The deployment plan is very much on track and we expect some 70% of the population to be covered within the coming 12 coming months after the commercial launch” states Mr Gujjalu. The remaining part of the island will be covered by year 2013.

Mr Sharma concludes by saying that we have very high hopes from this project in line with the hopes of the citizens of the country. Based on our experience and customer feedback in Mauritius we propose to enter five more African countries in the next 18-24 months.

Mr Sharma puts on record the proactive support and collaboration BTL has received from the Ministry of IT and Telecommunications, the regulatory authority, the Central Electricity Board and the Board of Investment for which he is extremely thankful.