Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is sourcing India's highest-density fibre optic cables ever deployed in the country from the London-listed Vedanta group flagship in India, Sterlite Technologies.

The public sector telco plans to install these ribbon fibre optic cables, the Ribbon-Lite 288F, in about 100 city sites across the country in the rapidly growing FTTx (fibre-to-the-''x'') applications sector - making it the first time that fibre optic cables higher than 144F are being deployed in the country.

Ribbon fibre optic cables provide an efficient means to achieve high fibre density, as well as reduce the time per fibre required for installation, thus facilitating quick roll-out of the network.

Sterlite is widely regarded as the pioneer of ribbon fibre optic cables in India, having supplied over 60 per cent of the country's requirements since 2003.

''Higher computer penetration, greater usage of the internet, coupled with emergence of content rich business applications have resulted in an exponential increase in demand for bandwidth," said Sterlite's K S Rao, COO (telecom business).

In FY08, the number of broadband subscribers in India grew by nearly 65 per cent over that in FY07 and India is currently positioned as the fourth largest consumer of optical fibre in the world.

Sterlite's K S Rao, COO (telecom business) said "As industry leaders, we work closely with leading telecom incumbents in the country to develop solutions that would create a future-proof platform capable of supporting the demand for bandwidth intense applications.''

Keeping the growth in demand from the Indian and global telecom and power sectors, Sterlite is doubling its manufacturing capacity of Optical Fibre facility to 12 million-km, tripling the manufacturing capacity at its Fibre Optic Cables facility to 6 million-km and is increasing the manufacturing capacity by 40 per cent at its power conductors facility to 160,000 MT.

Sterlite is India's only fully integrated optical fibre producer and is among the top five global manufacturers of power conductors. The company has optical fibre manufacturing plant in Aurangabad, India, and telecom cable and power transmission conductor facilities in Silvassa and Haridwar, India.

Last month Sterlite received Rs2,254 crores contract from Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) for its ACSR Moose power conductors with about 60 per cent of the contract value to be executed within the current fiscal.

It has shown a consistent financial growth with CAGR of 75 per cent in net revenues and CAGR of 115 per cent in net profits for the period 2004-2008.