Subscribers of telecom operator MTS can now surf the Internet all the way from Chennai to Bangalore on the National Highway 4 unlike in the past when they could do so only near towns.
The telecom operator has put up nearly 40 towers called Base Receiver Stations on this highway to help its subscribers have seamless access to high speed Internet using a laptop or a smartphone.
This will help frequent business travellers between the information technology hub (Bangalore) and manufacturing hub (Chennai) access Internet on the move. Company officials claimed that MTS is the only operator to provide such connectivity.
The 350-km stretch between Chennai and Bangalore along the NH4 also has a number of industrial pockets, including Ambur, Tirupattur, Hosur and Sriperumbudur.
Mr Suresh S. Kumar, Chief Operating Officer, (Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh) of MTS India, said a study done on the stretch revealed that every day around 20,000 passenger vehicles carrying a large number of professionals ply between Chennai and Bangalore along the NH4. Nearly 90 per cent of the car passengers have laptops or smartphones. During weekends and holidays, the number of vehicles will be significantly more, he told newspersons.
In July, Sistema Shyam TeleServices, which nationally provides telecom services under the brand MTS brand, launched such a service on the 265-km long Delhi-Jaipur highway.
Accessing the Internet at over 256 kilobits per second is considered to be high speed connectivity. MTS said that the speed on NH4 would be higher depending up on the number of subscribers accessing the Internet at the same time.
“If you are the only one accessing the Internet or travelling early morning in the stretch or closer to a tower, the speed could even be more than 2.5 megabits per second. You can even watch videos without interruption,” Mr Cheenu Seshadri, Chief Strategy Officer of MTS India told newspersons.