Advertisment

Bharti BT to set up two international gateways

author-image
CIOL Bureau
New Update

BANGALORE: Bharti BT Internet Pvt. Ltd. will apply to the

department of telecommunications (DoT) for setting up two international gateways which

will enhance its Internet services in Delhi and Bangalore. Disclosing this, Bharti BT

chief executive officer N. Arjun said that his company's objective was to start offering

Internet services through its own international gateways by March 1, 2000.

Advertisment

Mr Arjun said that the total cost of the project would be

about Rs 50 crore. He added that the gateways would also extend bandwidth to the Internet

Service Providers (ISPs) in Type C categories. ``What we want is to have a better control

on the backbone in order to provide better service to the customers,'' he said.

Mr Arjun also announced that Bharti BT was in talks with

several cable operators in various cities for possible alliances to offer Internet access

through their cable network. ``We will not be able to provide good connectivity through

the present quality of cables. We are therefore exploring the possibility of investments

to install better cables,'' Mr Arjun said.

He admitted that the cable operators were not in a

financial position to invest in better cables or fibre optic cables. ``We may have to

invest ourselves,'' he added.

Bharti BT will also launch its Internet services in 15

cities of Madhya Pradesh, where Bharti Telecom is offering fixed line telephone access.

Currently, Bharti BT is offering Internet access in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. The

test runs would begin in the 15 cities on August 12. The company plans to achieve a total

subscriber base of 70,000 by March 2000 against the current figure of 12,000, Mr Arjun

said.

The DoT had announced guidelines for the private ISPs to

apply for international gateways to provide Internet access directly or through other

ISPs. Currently, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. has the monopoly in operating international

gateways in the country.

tech-news