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.
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.