As coordinator of the ERNET team at India’s National Center for Software Technology (NCST), he led the efforts to set up ERNET’s central mail switch and its international gateway, starting with a link to Amsterdam in 1987, using TCP over X.25. This was the first such international connection from India. A year later, his team connected ERNET to the UUNET in Falls Church, Virginia, as well. Partnering institutions of ERNET, in cooperation with Ramani’s team at NCST, set up domestic TCP/IP links to extend the network nationwide.
Earlier in his career, Ramani led a team to create communication software for an Indian-made computer in 1976-77, using it in the education field. He played a key role in connecting three cities in 1981 through an experimental satellite-based packet switching network, and co-authored a pioneering paper proposing a Low Altitude Equatorial Satellite for computer messaging in 1982. This proposal led others to build such a satellite and to demonstrate its utility internationally.
