HEADLINES
JOBS
COM:PORT
POLICY POLICE
ARCHIVES

The Hinduja Group is setting up a company that will provide backbone services like a gateway and international leased circuits for Internet traffic.

About Rs 1 billion may be sunk into the venture over the next two years.

The National Task Force on Information Technology has recommended that private Internet service providers be allowed to set up their own international gateways subject to security clearances.

The suggestion was made in the task force's 108-point IT Action Plan that was submitted in July and subsequently put in the gazette by the government.

T O D A Y

• The gate-crasher • IIT's School of IT • TN's IT task force • VSNL-DoT merger • Exim Bank's IT deal • GIS meet coming up

Internet gateway services have, till now, been a monopoly of the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited.

The task force's action plan is silent on the matter of the private ISPs leasing international circuits to the Internet from agencies other than the VSNL.

The Hindujas are confident that they would be allowed to set up the venture. If that happens, VSNL will face competition for the first time in the gateway and international leased circuits market.

The Hinduja company will initially lease 50 MBPS of international circuit to the Internet that will subsequently be increased to 100 MBPS in two years.

However, these circuits will be on satellite, instead of cables that the VSNL uses for its Internet services.

For this purpose, the company is planning to lease a full C-band transponder.

"We currently have offers from about three satellite companies and will take a decision shortly,'' a Hinduja source has been quoted as saying.

The company will lease the bandwidth to other private ISPs besides providing bandwidth to IN CableNet, the Hinduja-owned cable TV distribution company.

- Compiled from the Indian media

Tell us what you think