Bharti-BT and Estel to become gateway service providers

NEW DELHI: Bharti-BT, an Internet service provider, and Estel Communications are likely to be the first to get licenses as Internet gateway service providers. In fact, of the eight gateway service providers who made the presentation to DoT in early January in Bangalore, apparently only Bharti-BT and Estel were able to provide the specific details about their partners and other technical specifications to the satisfaction of DoT. Just what were this specific details was not disclosed. It is only after this that they signed a formal commitment with DoT to set up gateways. Together they will set up six gateways–one each in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Interestingly, though there were 21 applicants seeking permission to set up gateways, only 14 were invited to make the presentation. However, only eight actually made the presentation since the others did not possess the relevant information sought by DoT. As a result, DoT has once again extended the deadline to facilitate more companies to make presentations and hopes to have all the commitment by end of January.

Bharti-BT will use most of the bandwidth capacity for its own consumption since it is an ISP. It is already in talks with a number of satellite companies like Panamsat, Loral Orion, Teleglobe and Lockheed Martin. Estel, however, has no plans to become an ISP although it holds an ISP license as per the gateway requirements. Estel's bigger gameplan is to take on VSNL and provide bandwidth capacity to ISPs and corporates. It has two bandwidth packages: Skydirect (which is a receive-only Internet service through a C-band VSAT from a Europe-based teleport) and Net Plus.

The satellite to be used is from Lockheed Martin. Estel also plans to set up a network of microwave towers so that customers within a range of 40-50 kilometers of the three gateways will be able to bypass the local landlines. Although it did not reveal its tariff structure, Estel claims its service will be very competitive and will sign clauses with its customers guaranteeing 99.99 per cent uptime.