Sterlite Tech bags MahaNet project, partners with Jio

Sterlite Technologies Ltd. has won a Rs 1,512-crore deal to set up a broadband network to connect over 4,000 villages in eight districts of Maharashtra. Separately, the Vedanta Group company said it is working on a prototype for last-mile connectivity using its newly unveiled fibre (FTTx) with Reliance Jio Infocomm, which is betting big on home broadband.
Sterlite Tech will connect 4,045 gram panchayats, or village blocks, in the Maha-Net programme under the BharatNet-II initiative in Maharashtra, it said in a statement on Monday. The network will benefit more than 7.5 million people.

The deal comes on the heels of a Rs 3,500 crore contract it won in October to design, create, operate and maintain a digital network for the Indian Navy.

Sterlite Tech said it has tied up with billionaire Mukesh Ambani-owned Jio for undertaking a proof of concept (PoC) for its last-mile connectivity platform.

“We are currently doing PoC with Reliance Jio for FTTx Mantra,” Sterlite Tech group chief executive officer Anand Agarwal told ET, adding that fibre is the key to connect Jio’s 1,100 cities and 50 million homes and the company’s solution was suitable for faster execution.

Jio is working on its home broadband service Jio Giga-Fiber, which the company plans to launch soon after creating a fibre-based network across large cities to also connect 30 million merchants and small and medium businesses.

Sterlite Tech already supplies fibre to the Jio GigaFiber initiative and has deployed 100,000 route km of optic fibre for the Centre’s BharatNet-I programme.

Jio did not respond to an emailed query seeking comment.

Agarwal said the company is focusing on the access of telecom networks, which are increasingly becoming fibre-oriented with open-source hardware and software readily available for network management. The company sees opportunities in the government’s push for the telecom industry to deploy a million Wi-Fi hotspots by the end of 2019.

Less than a quarter of 475,000 tower sites in India are connected to optic fibre while another 100,000 are needed to cater to rising demand for data, according to industry estimates.