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MARCHING AHEAD: The Joint Managing Director, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd, Mr Rajan Bharti Mittal (right), and the President of the company's Infotel Business Group, Mr Badri Agarwal, during the announcement of Airtel's one millionth broadband customer in the Capital on Friday. — Kamal Narang

New Delhi , Sept. 2

BHARTI Tele-Ventures has announced that it would invest Rs 1,500 crore during the current fiscal to roll out fixed line telephone and broadband services across 10 States.

The company, which offers telecom services under the Airtel brand, is targeting a subscriber base of 2.5 million fixed line users by March 2007. Bharti is also planning a terrestrial link between Indian and Pakistan and has sought government approvals for the project.

"Bharti has crossed the one-million subscriber mark in fixed line broadband services and we have set a goal of achieving 2.5 million users by March 2007. We intend to roll out services in 14 more cities," said Mr Rajan Mittal, Joint MD, Bharti Televentures.

Bharti currently provides broadband and telephone services in 66 cities spread over 10 circles. The new towns include Chandigarh, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Agra, Cochin and Pune.

Out of the Rs 1,500 crore investment, Rs 800-900 crore will be spent on the 14 new cities and Rs 700 crore on the upgradation of the existing circles, Mr Mittal said. This takes the cumulative investment of Bharti in fixed line business in the last seven years to Rs 3,500 crore.

Bharti is the only private telecom service provider that offers fixed line phones using purely wire line technology. Most of the other basic operators use CDMA-based wireless solutions to offer telephone services.

At a time when fixed line user base has been on the decline, Bharti has attempted to make fixed line phones more user friendly by launching mobile-like services such as caller back ringtones, roaming, Airtel Live services and voice mail services. The company is now gearing up to offer triple play services, which will offer subscribers a combination of telephone, cable TV and high speed Internet on the same line.

"We have already laid 40,000 route km of optic fibre cable and are adding about 5,000 km every year. We are also interested in connecting India and Pakistan through a cable, which will offer Pakistan telecom users an option in case their existing international links develop a snag," said Mr Badri Agarwal, President, Infotel Business Group, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd.

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