Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, Nov 22, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, Nov 22, 2002 |
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Info-Tech
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New Products & Services Tata Indicom services launched in Mangalore Our Bureau
MANGALORE, Nov. 21 TATA Teleservices plans to invest about Rs 1,000 crore to establish its network in Karnataka over the next six years. The company expects its investments to have a `multiplier effect' on the economy and serve to fuel growth in a number of sectors including downstream industries such as IT-enabled businesses. Addressing a press conference here on Thursday to announce the launch of Tata Indicom services in Mangalore and go over the company's plans for Karnataka, the Chief Operating Officer of Tata Teleservices Ltd (Karnataka), Mr Y.V. Lakshminarayan Pandit, said an optic fibre ring of about 200 km has been laid in Bangalore covering all `important localities'. The Bangalore-Mangalore fibre backbone is ready and will be extended to Mangalore by March 2003. The company also plans about 100-150 public telephone booths in Mangalore in a phased manner. The main switching centres, sourced from Lucent, are located in Bangalore, Mangalore and Hubli. Strategically located cell sites in each city are expected to provide good wireless coverage. Wireless services were launched in Bangalore earlier this month and services were launched in Mangalore today. This will be followed by Hubli/Dharwad later this month and will cover 50 SDCAs (short distance charging areas) by mid-2003. The company, which plans wireline services, also proposes to lay 2,000 km of `optic fibre backbone' across the State over the next three years and cover the rest of the State in a phased manner. Of all its products — CDMA (code division multiple access) mobile, fixed wireless and wireline — Tata Teleservices expects its CDMA-powered mobile service to have a `special appeal' since it is supposed to combine the mobility advantage of a cellular phone and at the same time have the call tariffs of a regular landline phone. Currently operating out of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, Tata Teleservices plans to launch its range of products and services across other circles like Gujarat and New Delhi. The acquisition of the fifth basic circle — that is, Maharashtra, including Goa — from Hughes Telecom India is supposed to be a significant achievement for the company giving it access to a running operation of 1.8 lakh customers. In Andhra Pradesh, the company has a network that includes an optic fibre cable backbone stretching over 1,200 km. The company has invested Rs 1,600 crore in the State and claims to have a customer base of over 2 lakh.
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