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Data security

I would like to connect 200 company locations in remote Indian districts and share information. The frequency and load of data is not very heavy.

Please suggest a cost-effective solution for connectivity with which data security can be maintained. Will the use of VSATs be better than a leased line in this case?

Regards,
Rohit Sharma

Dear Rohit

Thank you for the mail.

It is encouraging to see that your company wants to link 200 nationwide locations and share information.

You can use a leased line to share data across the major locations and the Head Office. And you can use VSAT for locations in remote areas. Both leased lines and VSAT are point-to-point links, and thus secure. VSATs are more expensive than leased lines, but the reliability may be slightly better.

Locations in smaller towns can use dial-ups to connect to the nearest major town/location from where the data can be passed along a leased line. In order to secure a dial-up you can use encrypted mail (digital signatures), or sign up with an ISP for a VPN and remote login through dial-ups.

We hope this will be of help to you. We wish you all the best for your project.

Remote connectivity

I read the article 'LAN in the sky', written by Soutiman Das Gupta in the November 2001 issue of Network Magazine. The article was quite interesting and useful to us.

Our company has two units, which are at a distance of 1.5 Km from each other. We want to deploy connectivity links between the locations. Can you please suggest a technology, that will suit us most? In one unit we need around 30 network nodes, and in the second, we need around 10 network nodes.

Can you please suggest some names of agents who can provide us their services in this regard.

Regards
Vinay Kumar
Pep Infotech Limited

Dear Vinay Kumar,

Thank you for writing to us. We are glad that you found the article interesting and useful.

It is encouraging that you wish to connect your company locations and share information.

In order to connect the two locations you can use RF technology or VSATs.

RF technology: The radio frequency technology uses a line-of-sight beam and can offer pretty high throughputs in a reliable manner. Krone offers this solution in India.

VSAT: This satellite communication technology is great for remote areas and offers high throughput too. However it may work out to be expensive. Comsat Max, HCL Comnet, and HECL are the popular VSAT service providers in India.

We hope this information helps.

VoIP solution

Our company uses static IPs at many locations in India. We want to communicate between our offices with the use of VoIP technology. Every nationwide location uses PSTN to dial up into the Internet.

Is it possible to use a VoIP solution? If yes, what are the additional components required to set up the technology in the organization?

Regards
Gautam Ashtekar
Kores (India) Ltd.

Dear Gautam Ashtekar,

Thank you for writing to us.

It is encouraging to see that you wish to use VoIP technology to communicate between your company locations.

Companies who use VoIP technology for communication between locations typically use leased line connectivity. In such a case, deploying a VoIP solution is simple and very cost-effective.

Since you prefer to use PSTN we suppose you do not exchange very high volume traffic between locations. In that case you must look at the ROI for using a leased line.

Even if the use of leased lines do not seem cost-effective today, you can build the infrastructure keeping tomorrow's needs in mind.

We wish you all the best for your project.

Cost of VSAT

Refer to the article 'Connectivity: The VSAT way' in the June 2002 issue of Network Magazine. The article says that the cost of VSAT services has dropped dramatically in recent months. Can you provide an explanation why the costs have been driven down?

Regards
Larry Cosgrove

Dear Larry,

Thank you for writing to us. We are glad that you found the article interesting.

The cost of VSAT services in India has dropped for a number of reasons.

There is increased competition from leased line providers and DSL providers like Telcos and ISPs. These companies provide bandwidth at lesser costs, forcing VSAT providers to rethink their pricing strategies.

These companies are penetrating the rural and remote location markets very fast in search of new opportunity, and to comply with the government's goal of linking new ground and achieve development.

With the introduction of K-Band VSAT a couple of years ago, there is more scope for VSAT service providers to provide more bandwidth in a small spectrum. This helps keep the VSAT service provider's costs low. The service providers can pass on this benefit to the customer.

HLL LAN

I am a regular reader of Network Magazine and I have received a number of benefits from the information provided by your magazine. Keep up the good work.

Is it possible to feature the LAN architecture of Hindustan Lever Limited in your publication? I hope that in future you plan to publish an article on this topic.

Regards
Sumeet Sinha
New Delhi

Dear Sumeet Sinha,

We are glad that you find Network Magazine useful and informative. We have plans to feature many new organizations in the magazine and Hindustan Lever Limited is certainly one of them. However, we cannot give you a definite issue month right away. As soon as we're ready to feature the company we'll let you know in advance with a mail.