OMJASVIN M D By Express News Service CHENNAI: In an ambitious project to provide high-speed internet across the city, the Chennai Corporation would soon lay a 20,000-kilometre-long common underground corridor for fibre-optic cables. This move will benefit various government institutions and systems such as corporation schools, hospitals, CCTV surveillance, weather and flood monitoring systems, parking management and other markets involving Internet of Things (IoT). Apart from improving the network for government services, the move is expected to benefit residents by reducing their internet tariffs. “Tenders have been floated and the bidding date is on March 27. The contractors would be finalised immediately after that,’’ said a top Corporation official. Funded by public-private-partnership, the high-speed internet corridor set up under the ‘City Wide Fibre Connect’ project, will have its data centre at the Ripon Buildings, the headquarters of the Corporation. “There are 281 Corporation schools in the city and the common network corridor will help in equipping all the schools with smart classrooms. Students will have free access to e-syllabus and it will enhance audio and video-based learning,’’ the Corporation official added. Setting up city-wide fibre optics would require only one-time digging of roads, after which roads wouldn’t be dug, said the Corporation official. “Underground fibre optics would curb the rise in such cables which are currently connected by air. Internet operators can use the common hubs for new connections,’’ the official said. The contractors need not pay any fee to set up the fibre optics in the Corporation-owned roads, whereas, a fee would be collected by the Highways Department, which owns major roads like Mount Road, Thiruvottiyur High Road, and Poonamalle High Road among other roads. Fibre-optic internet is considered to be cutting-edge and faster than the standard broadband Asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL). The fibre lines transmit data through light signals where as the standard connections use copper wires for transmission. Fibre optics are globally popular and are considered to be ten times faster than the standard lines. While the base speed of this is expected to be 100 megabytes per second (mbps), which is the standard speed by internet service providers in the city, officials said the speed may vary between area to area. ‘’The data would be unlimited while the speeds may meet the standards of 5th generation networks. It will help in facilitating smart city projects.’’ added the official.

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