The Hindu Business Line : Diversifying to keep afloat<br>TCIL enters road construction; ITI into wireless biz

A slump in fixed line telephony business is forcing some public sector telecom companies with expertise in providing back-end support to service providers to look at other avenues to keep afloat.

For instance, Telecommunication Consultants of India Ltd (TCIL), which till now undertook turnkey projects in fixed line telephony, is now foraying into building roads and civil construction of hi-tech buildings.

The company has bagged a national highways project in Assam. TCIL is also the architect for a cyber city being constructed in Mauritius.

"Business from turnkey projects for rolling out fixed line networks has come down significantly. This is not only resulting in revenue loss but also lack of work for skilled workforce in the organisation. The best way to use the resources is to diversify into areas where our civil engineers and experts can offer consultancy," said a senior company official.

TCIL is expecting close to Rs 100 crore this year from its new venture. The company's overall turnover from telecom projects was Rs 750 crore last year.

TCIL has formed a team of 40 employees to look after the roads sector. It is exploring the possibility of moving into Afghanistan for road construction.

Similarly, Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) is now focussing on the wireless and broadband market. The company, which till now focussed on making fixed line telephone instruments, has charted out plans to manufacture equipment for both GSM and CDMA operators.

The company is also looking to make handsets for CDMA (code division multiple access) based operators.

"The company has planned to induct new technologies as well as upgrade infrastructure. The major investments will go towards GSM products, new generation equipment, broadband and rural network," said Government officials.

ITI had recently announced a tie-up with Alcatel to manufacture 4 million GSM lines at its Rae Bareilly plant.

The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT), another organisation dependent on fixed line telephony business, has had to rejig its financial outlay.

C-DoT is now focussed on providing value-added services and software intensive products.

"There has been a technology shift from fixed line to wireless and broadband. This calls for more effort on software rather than hardware intensive infrastructure. This has necessitated fine tuning of the outlay and expenditure for C-DoT," said Government sources.

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