Caltiger chalks out expansion plan

NEW DELHI: Caltiger, an `A’ category ISP, has embarked on a major expansion plan covering 100 cities by December 2000. It has formed an alliance with Euclid, which will provide infrastructure solutions in 11 cities across the country in the first phase. The company justifies its move by quoting IDC figures, which shows the Internet access market to be growing at 150 per cent (CAGR) and predicts the number of Internet subscribers to touch 9 million by 2003.

Since the number of ISP licenses are expected to reach 500 by 2003, up from the current 225 licenses, the company felt that it was a must to build the best infrastructure to offer reliable and scalable services. As, revenue from access continues to be the major source of revenue fro ISPs in India unlike in the US advertising and e-commerce contribute a fair chunk to the revenue. Given that the ISP access market worth Rs 102 crore in 1999 is expected to reach Rs 837 crore by 2001, reliable networks and differential services through new technologies like DSL, Wireless Internet etc would be th ekey drivers.

Caltiger.com, which began its services in Calcutta in 1999, offers leased circuits from 64 kbps to 1 mbps, ISDN circuits, dedicated dial-up, flexible virtual hosting packages to individual web site owners, webdesigners and large businesses. It also offers dedicated servers and co-located servers for portal sites. Since "time to market" is the key for ISPs, it is important that ISPs have a trouble-free network. Speed and risk-free infrastructure would be on top of mind to start off ISP operations. Reliable networks mean reduced costs, streamlined operations, reduced time to market, improved responsiveness to customers, and increased revenues and expanded markets.