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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (3684)	2/8/1999 9:28:00 AM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

<India Internet News> Dishnet ISP services from April 14 (Courtesy:The Hindu-BusinessLine) Date: 08-02-1999 :: Pg: 07 :: Col: a Our Bureau CHENNAI, Feb. 7 DISHNET Ltd of the Sterling Group, one of the licence holders for providing Internet services in the country, will be starting commercial operations from April 14, according to the company. Mr. C. Sivasankaran, Chairman, Sterling Group, told Business Line the company had applied for a 34 MB leased connectivity with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and was likely to get approval soon. The service would be launched on March 18 for distributors to test the services provided by the ISP, but the billing would be done only from April 14. According to Mr. J. Vijay, Director, Sterling Group, phase I of the service would begin with Chennai and Pune and nodal operational centres along with Mumbai and Delhi as hubs, and in the second phase centres such as Calcutta, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Coimbatore would be included as hubs. Dishnet has struck ''strategic alliances'' with Microsoft for the software, Cisco, Compaq and Ericsson for the hardware and Portal for the billing software, according to Mr. Vijay. He said Dishnet would leverage the infrastructural network already set up by Srinivas Cellcom, another group company which has the licence to provide cellular phone services in Tamil Nadu except Chennai. ''Dishnet will leverage the technology and the network already in existence and will piggyback on Srinivas Cellcom,'' he said. Sterling Infotech Ltd would be the holding company for Dishnet. The group is also talking to cellular service providers in other States in order to lease their infrastructure for Internet services. Sterling has already invested about Rs. 715 crores in setting up the infrastructure for Srinivas Cellcom. Dishnet plans to provide one hour free Internet access for the next five years for Rs. 3,300, and every additional hour would cost about Rs. 10. There is a concessional rate of Rs. 1,800 for students and women and for teachers the service would be free of cost. The distributors' profit would be about Rs. 1,100 (a third) per subscriber and Rs. 100 for every student or woman enrolled. Mr. Sivasankaran said to address the issue of high PC prices being an entry barrier for Internet access, the company would be setting up cybercafes for cheap access. ''These cafes will be more like clubs, and will be a place for people to hang out, and access to the Internet will be just one of the features,'' said Mr. Vijay. ''We will be testing the service initially in Tamil Nadu and then take it to other States. We are not worried about market share right now, and we are interested in making access easier and cheaper for the user,'' Mr. Sivasankaran said. Srinivas Cellcom plans MR. C. Sivasankaran told Business Line that Srinivas Cellcom would be beginning operations in Tamil Nadu shortly. ''We are waiting for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to come up with their final tariff proposals, and as soon as that happens, we will begin operations,'' he said. Srinivas Cellcom is the only licence holder for cellular phone service in Tamil Nadu (excluding Chennai) other than BPL which already has been providing services in this region. The Sterling Group also plans to set up a private gateway for its Internet services provided through Dishnet. ''We will set up a private international gateway in association with Singapore Telecom (SingTel),'' Mr. Sivasankaran said.