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To: SKIP PAUL who wrote (6473)	2/13/2000 10:55:00 PM
From: SKIP PAUL	Respond to of 13582

economictimes.com ($1=43.5 rupees) MTNL will go cellular in Delhi, Mumbai by June Our New Delhi Bureau 14 January MAHANAGAR Tele-phone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), the government-owned basic telecom service provider in Delhi and Mumbai, will launch cellular mobile services in the two metros by June. It has placed orders for infrastructure equipment worth Rs 82 crore with Indian Telephone Industries (ITI). MTNL?s cellular network will have a capacity of 100,000 lines each in Delhi and Mumbai in the first year of operation. This will be increased to 400,000 lines in each city by June 2003. The total cost of the project will be around Rs 1,000 crore. ITI will get a Rs 500-crore order for supplying, designing and installing the network over a period of three years. ITI has tied up with Lucent, a US-based telecom major, for the equipment. The cost per line of the network works out to Rs 3,666. This is about 80 per cent lower than what MTNL was getting a few months back, said chairman and managing director of MTNL, S Rajagopalan. Therefore, the project cost for MTNL will be much lower than its competitors in the two metros. ``We will pass on the cost advantage to the subscribers,' said Mr Rajagopalan. MTNL has submitted its tariff structure, which is believed to be much lower than the tariff offered by the private operators, to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for its approval. MTNL will have a full-fledged network in the two metros in eight months. ``We will have 150 cell sites in each city,' said Mr Rajagopalan. The existing licence does not allow MTNL to provide services in the satellite towns of Delhi such as Gurgaon, Faridabad and Noida. ``We have approached DoT requesting it to extend our area of operation to the neighbouring areas,' said Mr Rajagopalan. MTNL will provide CDMA-based wireless in local loop (WLL) services in Delhi and Mumbai within three months. US-based telecom giant Motorola will supply equipment of a capacity of 50,000 lines for Delhi while Fujistu will supply equipment for Mumbai. The existing internet capacity of MTNL's network is 35,000 each in the two metros, which will be extended to 100,000 lines in each city by March 2000. MTNL is focusing on providing good content to its subscribers. It has signed a MoU with Sun TV and Pantafour Software Systems for strategic alliance for the supply of content and has also established a payment gateway.