BMRCL leveraging Mindlance networking solutions!

A joint venture of the Government of India and the State Government of Karnataka,

Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) is a Special Purpose Vehicle entrusted with the responsibility of implementing the Bangalore Metro Rail Project. Bangalore Metro, christened as "Namma Metro", is poised not only to add to the beauty of the Bangalore skyline, but will immensely add to the comfort level of travel. Besides this, Namma Metro will be a major environment-friendly addition to the Bangalore City as it will significantly contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions. 

Since Mindlance was already in the process of implementing a similar solution, it came to BMRCL's help in configuring its routers. Mindlance was the natural choice of BMRCL. The implementation which took about a day went live in October 2011. “The fiber connectivity was already there. So, what needed to be done was putting networking modules in all of the switches where it could uplink to a depot.”

Concepts like data flowing from one network, i.e., from copper to fiber and vice versa, were introduced by the team. This network also connects to the Airtel network. Another network was the SBA network for the connectivity of combo cards - debit as well as smart card. BMRCL wanted the router configuration to be done in place, which was done by Mindlance. Fiber channel forms the basic backbone infrastructure. A minor glitch faced was that a lot of network design was required. The routing of cables in and out of consoles had to be done properly.

After the implementation, the benefits have been galore for BMRCL. In the Airtel network, they had to cross a railway line, something that is difficult. In a normal network, they were left with options of either to have to have a microwave link or a fiber cable going across. As the railway line was in-between, Airtel could not find any. It used BMRCL's viaduct fiber and connected it to the network. Copper was connected to the nearest station and converted to fiber and extended to the depot.

The spare cable left in the viaduct was used by BMRCL for its benefit rather than digging the road. These spare cables are also used by telecom operators. The management has been seriously considering of leasing these duct fibers so that any telecom company can connect to the nearest station and they can extend the network from end to end.