VSNL’s Gateway Monopoly Ends
Mantra Online has become the first private Indian ISP to set up an
international gateway in Delhi. The company is planning to commission seven more
gateways in Bangalore, Mumbai, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Chennai, and Pune
shortly. For the gateway operations, it is planning to invest Rs 25 crore.
The Ku-band gateway, built by Bharti
BT, will reduce per MB cost by 50 percent. Uplinking is via Panamsat’s PAS-4
transponder. The transponders currently provide data throughput of 8 Mbps on
downstream and 3 Mbps on the upstream. The gateway is scaleable up to 54 Mbps
downstream and 18 Mbps upstream.
Caltiger to Lay Submarine Cable
Caltiger is planing to lay 3000 km of submarine optical fibre cable around the
Deccan peninsula connecting Calcutta and Mumbai as a part of telecom
infrastructure, which will help transmitting data as well as voice once the
government allows Internet telephony. It also plans to go in for international
gateways in 10 cities having a total bandwidth of 400 Mbps.
Caltiger.com, the first Indian free
ISP, is expanding its Internet services to 40 cities within the next two months.
Its Delhi node will go commercial on Independence Day.
Pravin Prashant
Policy
370 ISP Licences Given, 80 Start Operations
Speaking on the occasion of the Mantra gateway inauguration, Ramvilas Paswan
said that the DoT had issued 370 licences to ISPs of which 80 had started their
operations in the country. 34 companies have been given permission to install
international gateways in 120 locations. The minister also said that Sanchar
Sagar, DoT’s STM backbone, would be operational very soon.
Standing Committee on Bandwidth Set up
The Telecom Commission has recommended the setting up of a 12-member
standing committee on bandwidth to look into the issues faced by the IT and
telecom industry.
The committee is expected to look into
areas like demand for bandwidth, its current availability, its short-term and
long-term requirement at the national and international level. The committee
will provide guidelines to fill the gap in demand besides framing guidelines for
speedy disbursal of leased-circuits.
Report
It Is 6-hour Access per Week for Indian User:
NASSCOM
According to a NASSCOM survey, 43 percent users of Internet in India are
professionals. Students constitute about 38 percent. Internet users on an
average are estimated to be accessing the Internet for 6 hours a week. Males
outnumber females in Internet usage by 77 percent to 23 percent. Over half (59.2
percent) use the Internet as an information resource, 11.3 percent use it as an
educational tool, and just 8.2 percent for entertainment.
PC Quest Announces ISP Review Results
PC Quest has conducted India’s first nationwide ISP review. The tests were
carried out live in the cities of Bangalore, Calcutta, Chandigarh, Chennai,
Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, and Trivandrum. PC Quest’s team of reviewers
purchased and used accounts in these cities to evaluate the quality of their
service.
The national ISPs came out top in all
cities except Chandigarh where Glide effectively beat the national ISPs on
service. VSNL and MTNL scored poor in help desk performance and in ease of
purchasing accounts. In spite of that, VSNL put up a creditable performance to
top in Delhi.
ISPs in Hyderabad gave very poor
bandwidths and service. Bangalore fared better. But Delhi and Chennai were way
ahead. The city-wise best services were Pacific Internet in Bangalore, Mantra
Online in Chennai, Satyam Online in Mumbai, Satyam Online in Calcutta, VSNL in
Delhi, Mantra Online in Pune, Glide in Chandigarh, Sigma Online in Hyderabad,
and Satyam Online in Trivandrum.
Launch
TCIL to Provide Wireless Internet Access
The long-awaited Internet services by Telecommunication Consultants India Ltd (TCIL)
will be launched by September, according to AS Bansal, CMD of TCIL. In fact, it
could be as early as 15 August 2000. The JV that will launch the service is
called Internet Express, in which the main holding companies are TCIL with 40
percent equity and JMS Worldwide with 49 percent. The JV currently has two more
Indian partners in IRCON with 6 percent and I-Net with 5 percent.
The JV is planning to provide wireless
access to Internet. However, the company will also provide wireline connectivity
in sparsely populated areas.
Balaka Baruah Aggarwal
Bharat to Market through Paan Shops
Bharat Connect, which has launched free Internet services in Delhi, has set an
ambitious revenue target of Rs 26 crore during the first year of operation. It
expects Rs 15 crore out of this to come from advertisements and the rest from
providing services like leased-line connectivity, VPNs, and e-commerce to
corporates. Its starter kit is not downloadable and is available on CD for Rs
199. It is using unconventional channels like paan and kirana
shops to reach out to the subscribers. 2 lakh is the subscriber base that is
targeted for present fiscal.
Bharat Connect’s future plans include
covering eight more cities by March 2001 and the investment is expected to be Rs
150 crore.
Meghla Kathju and Pravin Prashant
Broadband
ECP Okays Spectranet OFC Network in Punjab
Electronics Corporation of Punjab (ECP) has signed a collaboration agreement
with Spectranet Ltd and Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) to set up a
broadband OFC communication network in Punjab. The network will provide
high-speed connectivity to subscribers and support value-added services for the
common citizens. "The e-governance need of the Punjab Government and PSEB
would also be met through this network," said GS Pirzada, managing director
of ECP.
Hathway Extends Coverage of Cable Internet
Hathway is spreading its Cable Internet coverage in Mumbai. It is now available
in Cuffe Parade, Colaba, Churchgate, and Fort. By August, the company hopes to
cover Pedder Road, Worli, and Bandra as well. UCN Space Vision Network &
their affiliate cable operators offer the Hathway cable Internet service.
Others
Caltiger Acquires Sun Infoway
Calcutta-based Caltiger.com has fully acquired Sun Infoway, a Rajkot-based ISP.
Commenting on the move, Akshay Kumar, president, Caltiger.com, said,
"Setting up infrastructure in each city will be time consuming. Hence, the
idea of acquiring an ISP." Last week, the company declared that they had
accumulated a subscriber base of over two lakh. "Caltiger hopes to reach
the one-million mark by the end of the year," said Joe Silva, one of the
promoters.
Aptech to Build Econets in India
Education major, Aptech, is working on a concept of economic networks (econets)
wherein a vertical segment–initially the automobiles and manufacturing
industry in India–will stand to benefit from their interdependency and from
the scale of operations. The econet will provide a common platform to automobile
majors for transacting with their suppliers, thereby reducing the cost of
maintaining a private network. The initiative will later spread to other
vertical sectors like electrical, healthcare, and insurance. With an investment
of Rs 20 crore, the econet is expected to be operational by September.
SIFY Completes IndiaWorld Acquisition, to Acquire
Indiaplaza.com
Satyam Infoway Ltd (Nasdaq: SIFY) has completed its acquisition of IndiaWorld
Communications Pvt Ltd by acquiring the remaining 75.5 percent stake in
IndiaWorld in a part-cash and part-stock deal. In November 1999, SIFY had
acquired 24.5 percent stake for Rs 122.2 crore and paid a deposit of Rs 51.3
crore to acquire an option to buy the remaining on paying a further Rs 325.4
crore before 30 June 2000. SIFY completed the acquisition by paying Rs 215.4
crore in cash and issuing 2,68,500 fresh equity shares for Rs 110 crore. SIFY’s
equity shares issued for this purpose are valued at Rs 4,097 per share.
Satyam Infoway has also announced its
plans to acquire US-based Indiaplaza.com, a leading worldwide India-interest
online shopping mall, in an all-stock deal. This acquisition will cost Satyam
Infoway 4,80,000 of its American Depository Shares (ADSs) valued at $8.1 million
at closing of trading on 24 July. Satyam Infoway has also recently taken equity
shares in London-based popular cricket dotcom, Cricinfo.
Snippets
-
BlazeNet is setting up an
Internet gateway in Ahmedabad to provide gateway operations in the city and
other major cities in Gujarat. The total installed capacity of the gateway
will be 45 Mbps, but initially it will have a dedicated bandwidth of 8 Mbps. -
IceNet has announced that it
is establishing an 8 Mbps earth station in Ahmedabad. It has tied up with a
Japanese Satellite JCSAT-3 for the purpose. The earth station is to hop to a
teleport connected to MAE West by undersea submarine fiber optic cables. -
Hughes Escorts Communication Ltd
(HECL), which has obtained an "A" category ISP licence, will
restrict itself to corporate customers focussing on building value in terms
of providing ASP services and setting up VPN networks. The company plans to
invest Rs 250 million towards this new initiative. - BSES TeleCom Ltd now offers broadband
services to Mumbaiites using an optical fibre network covering SEEPZ, a
Mumbai suburb. Datamatics Ltd is the first customer of this service. Branded
Powersurfer Broadband service, it will be offered to the main city on
leased-circuits.