Friday, January 14 2005 15:39 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) have begun an ambitious project using India's communication satellites to provide Internet access for thousands of villages in the country.

"The kind of connectivity required for inaccessible rural areas can be provided by only satellites, which then can be networked in a local area through wireless," ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair told reporters in Bangalore at the launch of BSNL's DataOne broadband service.

He said Internet bandwidth can be beamed through ISRO's communication satellites and transmitted within a village through wireless network.

Nair said the broadband network being created by BSNL and other telecom operators is to connect cities and small towns, but there are over 6.95 lakh villages which need connectivity and are not connected to the optic fibre loop being used for offering broadband in the country.

He said costs could be economical to provide Internet access through satellite to villages in mountainous and inaccessible places.

"Costs will be competitive when you have to go to mountains and unreachable places, because laying of optic fibre cable will be very expensive," Nair said.