You Telecom invests $25 Mn in net telephony service
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 22 August 2008, 02:00 IST
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Hyderabad: As the government decided to grant right to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), to offer internet telephony service, You Telecom India, a Mumbai based category one ISP and broadband service provider, is looking to invest about Rs 100 crore ($25 million) to offer triple play services, reported Business Line. Initially, You Telecom India is planning to invest Rs 50 crore ($ 12.5 million) in the phase one. The services are expected to begin within six months. The company also expects to raise fund through private equity route. "Once the proposals of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) secure Department of Telecom nod, which most people expect it within a month, it will take six months to offer these services commercially," says E.V.S. Chakravarthy, Chief Executive Officer, You Telecom. He noted that though most of the operators have started the Internet protocol based networks globally; in India they were waiting to sort out the issues regarding interconnect. Now, government of India has finally decided to permit ISPs to provide internet protocol service, hence more players may come forward to offer such services. He believes that there are a host of equipment ventures from China, who can offer hardware for these services. "However, one of the biggest impacts it will have is on the way tariff structure will change. We believe instead of pulse based, it will have unlimited talk time," told Chakravarthy. Moreover, he said "Operators are already faced with challenge of improving their average revenue per usage which is coming down due to lowering of tariffs. This has meant more focus on value added services. Presently, You Telecom has over 1,155 km of optical fiber network and over 4,000 km of last mile coaxial cable grid. It has operation in 12 cities and expected to expand its operation to 9 more cities soon.

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