Ericsson launches rural broadband project

MAHABALIPURAM: Aiming to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban India and to bring in the benefits of the internet to rural people, telecom equipment vendor Ericsson on Wednesday launched ‘Gramjyoti rural broadband project’ here.

India’s first HSPA (high-speed packet access) powered rural broadband demo network, that delivers the benefit of 3G, was launched as a pilot project early in September across 18 villages and 15 towns in Tamil Nadu, Ericsson India vice-president, marketing and strategy, P Balaji told reporters here on Wednesday.

“The project is an attempt to showcase and introduce the benefits of wireless CDMA (WCDMA)/HSPA technology in rural India, which will help connect communities to high-speed internet services for the first time”, he said.