The Hindu Business Line : VSNL all set to offer cable broadband

"According to our survey, education is a big market, and it is not too price-sensitive either. Parents are willing to pay for educational material."

Mumbai , Feb. 19

THE broadband-to-the-home race has begun in right earnest. While Reliance Infocomm's fibre-to-the-building network is being primed, Tatas-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd is working on an India-wide cable broadband project that's only two weeks away from commercial deployment in Mumbai.

"Subsequently, the service, which will be branded Tata Indicom, will be rolled out in the metros over a few months and later in other cities as well," said Mr N. Srinath, Director (Operations), VSNL, on the sidelines of a news conference here on Thursday.

VSNL is tying up with several multi-system operators (MSOs) and local cable operators (LCOs) through whom it will sell its Tata Indicom broadband service.

The box required for this could be sold by VSNL itself or by the LCOs, Mr Srinath said.

The cost of the service will be in line with or only slightly more expensive than today's cable broadband costs. Currently, initial costs are in the region of Rs 3,500 and monthly costs range from Rs 750 to Rs 1,000. "We would be somewhat in line with that," the official said.

Bandwidth would be offered from 64 kbps onwards.

VSNL was also talking to potential partners for applications, services and content, said Mr Srinath.

"We are not looking at corporate customers for whom we have entirely different kinds of broadband services on offer. We are looking at the retail segment. This would consist of homes, home-offices, small retail shops and establishments," he said.

VSNL has already done its research on what kind of content is best delivered through this service. "According to our survey, education is a big market, and it is not too price-sensitive either. Parents are willing to pay for educational material," he said.

Other kinds of content in demand are entertainment, information services and games.