Dishnet to invest $57 million in wireless network

BANGALORE: Privately held Internet firm Dishnet Wireless Ltd will invest 2.5 billion rupees over the next 12 months in a wireless broadband rollout across India, a company official said on Friday.

The all-wireless network, which will pump data at a speed of 512 Kilo bits per second, will give the company a headstart over giant rivals Bharti Televentures Ltd and Reliance Infocomm, V.G. Suri, vice-president, marketing at the Madras-based firm, said.

Bharti and Reliance, 45 percent owned by Reliance Industries, India's biggest private company, currently offer broadband Internet linked to their cable-based networks.

Dishnet will use high-range Wi-Max base stations and link them to smaller range Wi-Fi hotspots, and plans to offer services at prices comparable to wire-based Internet firms, Suri said.

"We expect them to come (to Wi-Max) but not before 2006," Suri said. "We are going to compete with wired broadband but in convenience (not price)," Suri said.

Over the next 18 months, Dishnet plans to build 6,000 hotspots which will offer Wi-Fi access for laptop users in cafes, malls and other public places, and separately sell wireless broadband to corporate and home users, he said.

Some 38 Indian cities will be linked by next March, with services starting in the technology capital of Bangalore in June.

Dishnet is a company controlled by unconventional entrepreneur C. Sivasankaran who shook up India's personal computer market more than a decade ago with cut-rate machines.

Sivasankaran sold off his wireline Internet service provider Dishnet DSL Ltd to Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, India's leading Internet firm acquired from the government by the Tata group and last December bought a stake in a firm which owns upmarket local chain of cafes, Barista.

Suri said the 120 Barista outlets would be key selling points for Dishnet's Wi-Fi services.

Madras-based Sify Ltd, which had an early start in the Wi-Fi business, has an active broadband service but is yet to start the wide-range Wi-Max service.

"Going forward we will certainly be deploying that, but it is difficult to say when," Sify spokesman David Appasamy told Reuters.