US companies keen for partnerships in telecom sector

NEW DELHI: Small and medium size companies in the US are keen to participate

in the Indian telecom sector. The US industry feels that the domestic market

offers opportunities not only to large established players who are already in

India but also to leading companies in the small and medium sector in the US.

This was stated by Daniel Edwards, the Mission Leader of the US Telecom/IT

Matchmaker Mission to India at the meeting organized by Confederation of Indian

Industry (CII) in New Delhi.

Edwards informed CII members that the delegation visiting India comprises

eight companies that were new to the market and did not have a commercial

presence in India. Each of these companies was among the leading companies in

the US and was very keen with CII members to explore the possibilities in the

Indian Telecommunications Sector.

This mission was in direct response to the policy changes that are happening

in India and most of the mission members already felt that there was an

opportunity for them to profitable participate in the Indian telecommunications

sector.

What was significant was that this mission comprised mainly of small and

medium companies whose activities were not known in India but representing the

cutting edge of the technology.

The eight companies represented in this mission were: Copper Mountain

Networks, Denwa Communications, Eagle Communications, edge2net, Global Commerce

Systems, New Horizons, Strategic Service Alliance, StreamSoft.

Vijay Kumar, Deputy Director General (PIP), Department of Telecommunications,

made a detailed presentation on the telecom network, NTP '99 and telecom

investment opportunities in India.

The investment opportunities identified by Kumar are:

* Basic Telephone Service

* National Long Distance including infrastructure provision

* Cellular Mobile - 4th operator in all service areas.

* Internet services

* Opening of international long distance in April 2001

* IT enabled services - Call centres, e-commerce etc

* Value Added services - GMPCS, V-SAT, Radio Paging, Trunking etc.

* Disinvestment of VSNL, reducing Government holding to 26 per cent.

Shashi Ullal, President and MD, Hughes Escorts Communications Limited,

mentioned that in the last 2-3 years, the inflow of funds through venture

capital has been roughly $ 1 billion.