THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Soon, students in 45,000 classrooms across 4,685 schools in the state will experience high-speed internet services with speeds of up to 100 Mbps. The Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) and state-owned telecom company BSNL have joined hands for providing high-speed internet connectivity, which will be 12.5 times faster than the 8 Mbps connections currently provided in schools.
The MoU was signed by K.Anvar Sadath, CEO, KITE and C.V.Vinod, CGM, Kerala Circle, BSNL in the presence of General Education Minister V Sivan Kutty, and principal secrerary (general education) A.P.M.Mohammad Hanish.
As part of the Hi-Tech school project in 2018, KITE had deployed Laptops, Projectors, USB Speakers and Networking in 45,000 classrooms.
At present, Samagra Resource Portal and Sahitham mentoring portal are available in all classrooms in offline mode. But, with the availability of 100 Mbps connection in classrooms, all such digital / online systems can now be used more effectively. This would also enable the availability of KITE VICTERS educational channel in all classrooms.
BSNL has agreed to enhance the broadband connection in schools to 100Mbsps without any additional cost and adhering to the existing rate of Rs.10000/- ( +GST) by which the earlier 8Mbps broadband connection was provided. Each school can now use upto 3300 GB data per month as per this plan.
"The initiative would indeed strengthen the initiatives of the State towards becoming a Knowledge Society", said Sivankutty.