IT major IBM India has commenced work on the Rs 70 crore (Rs 700 million) project to deploy 2.8 million lines in 900 cities for state-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited. The company is setting up the infrastructure jointly with global network solutions company UTStarcom, under a contract that was signed in March 2007.

The companies would set up a Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer network that allows telephones to connect faster to the Internet, IBM said.

BSNL will use the network to offer new broadband-based, multi-play services such as IPTV, video on demand, video multicast, VPN services, and high-speed Internet services across the  country.

In addition, the solutions being supplied by IBM and UTStarcom will provide the operator with network flexibility and scalability for innovation and a rapid return on investments.

"IBM's robust service-oriented architecture-based solution will help BSNL meet the challenge of supporting a distributed open source software and a business software solutions environment," IBM India Vice President (telecom) Vivek Gupta said.

UTStarcom will be the turnkey provider for this deployment and will maintain responsibility for the design, planning, deployment, service roll out and maintenance of the network.