Satyam Infoway launches third Net gateway

CHENNAI: Indian Internet firm Satyam Infoway Ltd. said on Thursday it had

launched a third satellite-based Internet gateway in the southern city of

Hyderabad.

Last month, the firm said it had launched two gateways in the western cities

of Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

The firm is currently setting up 17 gateways across 13 Indian cities to ease

bandwidth congestion and improve the quality of basic ISP (Internet Service

Provider) and e-commerce services to its clients.

"We are partnering with SingTel (Singapore Telecom), New Skies and Loral

Cyberstar for these gateways," the firm said in a statement.

The firm's American Depositary Receipt was trading at a new lifetime low of

$5 - at 14:55 GMT on Thursday on the Nasdaq, down $0.75.

It's calendar 2000 high was $113 on February 24.

Earlier this month, the firm said it would buy a total of 60 megabits of

international satellite bandwidth for six of its gateways, from the Dutch

communications firm New Skies Satellites NV. Satyam will pay New Skies $600,000

a month for the bandwidth.

The firm said its gateways will have 9.0 Mbps (megabits per second) capacity.

State-run Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd., the country's biggest ISP, enjoyed a

monopoly as India's overseas telecommunications access provider until June 1999,

when the government allowed private ISPs to set up their own gateways.

Satyam Infoway is an affiliate of Indian computer services firm Satyam

Computer Services Ltd. and is one of the three Indian companies listed on the

Nasdaq.

The firm currently has about 400,000 subscribers for its dial-up ISP service.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.