Hughes Communications India (HCI) has announced a new managed services deal for cement companies, ACC and Ambuja Cement. The deal involves deploying dual LTE/4G at over 100 manufacturing and field units across India. HCI is a joint venture between Hughes Network Systems, a global provider of broadband satellite networks and services, and India's Bharti Airtel.
According to an Economic Times report, this managed service from HCI adds a backup path to the Software-defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) deployed by the two cement companies in their manufacturing units. The managed service aims to improve network reliability to support critical business processes and applications.
HCI will provide a turnkey solution, including setup, installation, and support for all sites. The 2Mbps LTE/4G links will come from different telecom operators with automatic failover between the LTE links. The customer premises equipment will have two independent LTE ports and modules that support major routing and security protocols. In case of a primary network failure, the HCI solution will provide connectivity for critical business applications like enterprise resource planning (ERP), voice, and internet.
This agreement is significant considering that India is the second-largest producer of cement globally. ACC is a leading player in the Indian building materials industry with a pan-India operational and marketing presence. Ambuja is also a major player, engaged in the manufacturing of clinkers and cement.