A laparoscopy update workshop in New York has been brought live to a group of Chennai physicians through a state-of-the-art video-conferencing facility hosted by the BSNL.
A series of laparoscopic foregut procedures conducted at the New York Westchester Medical Centre was telecast to about 75 surgeons attending a Continuing Medical Education programme organised by the Lotus Sooriya hospital.
BSNL's Rajiv Gandhi Memorial Telecom Training Centre provided the technology solution for the event with an ensemble of high-end cameras, an 8 Mbps leased line, audio system, LCD projectors and surround sound amplifiers.
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A 250-seater e-studio replete with video mixers and high-end servers was set up at BSNL's Anna Road complex to host the video-conferencing.
BSNL Tamil Nadu Circle Chief General Manager M. Ashraf Khan told presspersons that the BSNL has plans to aggressively tap the revenue stream from providing temporary leased high-bandwidth lines for organisations planning videoconferencing events.
BSNL charges about Rs. 1.25 lakh per day for the supplying videoconferencing logistics that are currently also available in Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchi and Salem.
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P. Sathish, laparoscopy surgeon from Sooriya, said the high bandwidth facilitated uninterrupted learning and two-way communication.
Mr. Khan said the declining number of landlines in the State was more than compensated by the growth in mobile subscriber base.
While an estimated 1.3 lakh landline connections were surrendered over the previous year to bring down the number of fixed phones to 18 lakh connections, mobile users grew rapidly to touch 65 lakh.
The circle also has 1.5 lakh 3G users. Taken together with Chennai Telephones subscriber data, the State now has 80 lakh mobile users.
The BSNL is trying to figure out ways to improve broadband penetration, said Shanmugasundaram, BSNL Principal General Manager. The number of broadband connections in Tamil Nadu Circle is only about 4 lakh and BSNL is launching efforts to double that over the fiscal, he said.
An improved broadband picture would also arrest the trend of landline surrenders as BSNL is looping its DataOne services through copper cables on the fixed phone.
On the complaints about dipping speeds on 3G data cards, the officials said the situation has improved with the capacity addition at the main gateways. BSNL's 3G network covers 78 cities in the State.