MTNL has awarded a Rs 1.7 billion contract to Sterlite Optical Technologies Limited (SOTL) for rolling out 500,000 broadband connections in Delhi and Mumbai. SOTL was the lowest bidder in competition from ZTE, Siemens and UTStarcom. The connections will enable MTNL users to access high speed internet and other value-added services such as virtual private networks (VPNs), video multicast and video-on-demand. MTNL is targeting 500,000 broadband users in Delhi and Mumbai by the end of financial year 2007-08. Currently, the company has about 300,000 broadband subscribers.