VISAKHAPATNAM: Chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and networking giant Cisco executive chairman John T Chambers jointly launched the Andhra Pradesh Fibre Grid project in Viskahapatnam city on Thursday.
In order to provide world's cheapest internet connection of speed 15 Mbps at Rs 149 per month along with TV channels and telephone connection, the Andhra Pradesh government has initiated the Fibre Grid project in association with Cisco.
The main motto of the project is to provide digital services to all the 1.3 crore households in the state by July end.
The project with underground cabling was initially pegged at Rs 4,000 crore cost and at least four years time. But the state government has taken up the project utilising the 3.75 lakh electrical poles laying 22,500 km long optical fibre cable.
After launching the project, Chandrababu Naidu and John Chambers interacted with students of a high school, patients at a primary health centre, gram panchayat office at various places in Visakhapatnam
district. The doctors and patients of primary health centre, Sabbavaram also interacted with the super specialty doctors of King George Hospital for an advanced medical treatment. On the occasion, the chief minister has said the open optical fibre cabling was a phase-1 of the project and the underground cabling project would be taken up as a phase-2.