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Pune-based optical fibre maker Sterlite Technologies today announced setting up of a seed fund of $100,000 fund for promoting innovations in the field of broadband deployment in India.
The company has also set up Centre of Excellence in Aurangabad with the total investment of Rs 55 crore. The CoE will adjoin company's 20-millon kms optical plant in Auragabad. According to Sterlite, the CoE is the only such facility in India dedicated to research and development of fibre-optic broadband technologies.
Former president of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam inaugurated the CoE. Sterlite is ramping up its Silvassa plant capacities from 8 km million to 15 km million with the investments of Rs 150 crore.
"People always talked about fund crunch restricting innovation. We have earmarked $100,000 as seed fund for promoting innovation in the field of deploying broadband in India. Intellectual Property Right will be completely owned by developer of the technology and Sterlite will help the entity or person in commercialising it. The innovation can come from any part of the world but it should suit Indian conditions. We will soon start process of inviting applications," said Anand Agarwal, CEO, Sterlite Technologies.
Sterlite Technologies also signed agreements on collaborative research in ultra-high speed broadband with the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) of Madras and Kanpur, and said it would set up a five-member panel comprising broadband experts who would jointly advise on grants and fellowship programmes to encourage high-speed broadband research in India.
Agarwal added, "The company is seeing focus of telecom operators now coming to data (internet) business which will push demand for optical fibre cable (OFC). Reliance Jio entry into telecom business is serving as catalyst for demand of OFC. We last month achieved 20 million fibre kilometer production. Now we are going to increase our cable production in Silvassa plant to 15 million km from 8 million kilometer. We will invest Rs 150 crore in ramping up our capacity by March 2016."
Sterlite is eying the position at the confluence of Government’s vision of Digital India, Make in India, and 100 Smart Cities, and the initiatives announced are aimed at furthering India’s broadband research muscle. Also, it has delivered over 40 per cent of India’s fiber network and now playing an integral role in National Broadband projects, as well as the backhauling of all data on 3G, 4G and fixed networks.
Agarwal also said that the company has achieved data transmission speed of 20 terabit per second but electronic equipment are not available in market to transmit this high speed. In India, it has deployed OFC that deliver 100 gigabit per second in back end network which is commercially viable and customer gets up to 100 megabit per second at home.
The company this month reported exponential jump in profit after tax at Rs 23.06 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2014 on account of high demand for its products from various telecom and power infrastructure projects. Sterlite's order book includes Rs 2300-crore worth projects from telecom sector and Rs 2400 crore from power sector.
