Satyam Info calls off JV with RPG

CHENNAI: India's largest private Internet firm Satyam Infoway Ltd has called
off a planned broadband Internet access joint venture project with
Calcutta-based RPG Netcom Ltd., the firm's chief said on Saturday.

"The cable-based (Internet access) initiative has not found acceptance
among retail customers and so we decided that the timing is not right for now
and that we would revisit it later," Satyam Infoway's managing director R
Ramaraj told Reuters.

Satyam tied up with the RPG Group firm in December 1999, to set up an equal
joint venture for providing cable-based broadband Internet access in Calcutta,
where RPG Netcom operates an extensive cable television network.

The Hindu Business Line on Saturday quoted RPG Group vice-chairman
Sanjiv Goenka as saying the joint venture had been called off and that the group
was now "taking a re-look at its entire strategy of acting as an ISP".
Ramaraj said several cable-based broadband access projects launched by a clutch
of Internet service providers in the country, including the firm's other cable
project in Jamshedpur, were struggling to woo retail customers.

"That project goes on, but there also the response from retail Internet
users has been very small," he added. A majority of India's over two
million Internet subscribers currently access the Internet using dial-up
connections.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.