INTERNET THROUGH CABLE

No. We are not starting net cafes on our own. We give it to whoever asks. Initially we had a test run in our premises and got a good response. Also we have got good response from the net cafes. We are right now concentrating on corporates and the hospitality industry. We have tied up with a few hotels; we plan to install a modem in every room.

What do you see as the potential of Internet-through-cable in Chennai?

The potential is huge. Initially we had difficulties in network; some backbone bandwidth problem. With Sing Tel, we are more confident. It started picking up around February-March this year. By December, hopefully, 10,000 connections will be in place.

There are many claims made by many players. Net through modem without any cable. There is also a version of net without any cable modem, with just a card inserted inside the computer. Its works more like LAN. But reliability is suspect.

The technology that we are using is our USP. This product will live longer, it will take us to the next decade.We have chosen the best product available in the market. We scanned quite a few products before settling on this. We inspected the product on the premises of Coresma. The technology we use is called Elastreem Technology. It senses when you need or do not need the net and switches on or off accordingly. For example, if you are checking some long attachment, the net shuts off on its own. Once its senses that you are trying to browse again, it comes back on. It also senses your bandwidth requirement and accordingly gives you more or less road. It also classifies you according to your usage pattern. Thus it dynamically conserves and distributes, according to each person's requirement.

Consolidation and dropouts have already started taking place. There will be some bloodshed. There will be an ISP-bust like the dotcom-bust. There are going to be some casualties. The question is not how many are launched? The question is how many are operational? Some of them have purposefully brought the costs on themselves. Satyam has made loses of over Rs 86 crore in the process. People are realising slowly that there is no money in the dial-up service. Whatever forays we have made so far , we have made profits. We are expecting our profits to swell in the subsequent quarters. We are confident that once the client gets around to installing this service, he will continue to renew. Once we have a network laid out, adding new customers will be easy with the existing infrastructure. And when we start giving additional features, we are going to use the existing infrastructure, which means no additional cost.

In another six to eight months we are trying to get a technology with over 42,000 Kbps speed. For existing clients we will only be charging the upgradation cost for this, as the infrastructure already exists. Apart from that, we are planning to offer VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), FoIP (Fax over Internet Protocol), VioD (Video on Demand), AoD (Audio on Demand), web casting...

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