THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Despite facing delays due to the Covid pandemic and heavy rain, work on the state government’s ambitious Kerala Fibre Optic Network (K-Fon) project is very much on track. By December this year, over 8,000 government offices and educational institutions, of the total 30,000 planned, will be linked through K-Fon network.
“Also coming up by the end of this year is a Network Operating Centre - the state-wide control facility for the network - at Infopark in Kochi. Also, the Data Recovery Centre at Vydyuthi Bhavan at Pattom will also become operational by December,” said Moses Rajkumar, deputy chief engineer, KSEB. K-Fon is a joint venture between KSEB, Kerala State IT Infrastructure Ltd (KSITIL) and the state government.
The 7,000-km-long backbone fibre of K-Fon is being drawn through high tension transmission towers of KSEB while the end-user is connected through KSEB poles. “A total of 5,000 km of optical fibre has already been drawn across the state which links 100 small towns,” said an official who is part of the project’s implementation.
GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Networks), a technology that enables a single feeding fibre to serve multiple homes and small businesses, is currently being provided by private players in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode. Once K-Fon becomes operational, GPON will be available even in remote locations in all 14 districts, the official said. A consortium led by Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) is executing the ambitious `1,028-crore project. BEL consortium will be in charge of operation and maintenance of the 35,000-km long network for the next seven years.
The road ahead
After linking around 30,000 government institutions as envisaged in the contract with BEL consortium, the project will then be used to provide internet connectivity to 20 lakh BPL families. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, it will help in the online education of students from underprivileged families, said an official.
Mobile operators that offer internet through wired as well as wireless mode can also lease out the fully-wired and more reliable K-Fon network for its operations. Cable TV operators, who pay pole rental charges to KSEB can also utilise the K-Fon network.