Hughes Communications, a leading networking solutions provider, has informed that it has received a five-year contract worth Rs 22.5 crore from public sector lender the State Bank of India (SBI).

The sources said that the order has been placed for deploying satellite broadband network to connect bank's off-site ATMs across the country.

As per the terms of the contract, Hughes will provide system integration, satellite bandwidth and network management services to SBI.

Hughes will also offer secure VSAT-based connectivity to SBI with backhaul to the bank's Data Centre and Disaster Recovery (DR) locations.

In addition to this contract, Hughes will provide connectivity to kiosk machines allowing SBI customers to not only know their bank account details but also to book Railway tickets.

While addressing the press conference, Mr. Shivaji Chatterjee, Vice-President of Hughes Communications India stated, "Satellite broadband has been the backbone of connectivity for the Indian banking industry and Hughes is proud to have connected more than 6,500 Core Banking Solution (CBS) branches and approximately 4,500 ATMs/Kiosks for various banks in the country usin g this technology."

In addition to this, about 2,000 ATMs are to be established by its associate banks (AB) and this rollout also forms part of scope for Hughes in this project. Being selected for the SBI project, all associate banks of SBI can now place order directly with Hughes for connecting their ATMs as well.