The Hindu Business Line : Data Infocom eyes ISPs in small cities — Patent anti-spam tool, has offer from US co

WITH three buy-outs already under its belt, Internet services company Data Infocom Ltd is looking at the acquisition of regional and lesser-known Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in small cities in a conscious effort to enhance its base of high revenue generating customers.

"We are keen on buying out smaller ISP operating in category C cities, as it would enable us to enhance our base and get high revenue customers," Dr Ajay Kumar Data, CEO of Data Infocom Ltd said here.

The company has ISP operations in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal and also supports its clients in Delhi. It had acquired Tantra Online in February this year, United ISP in 2004 and Vertec in 2003.

"The acquisitions now could be in any city or town as long as it is a non-metro location. For instance, we would be keen on acquisition of companies with customers in Noida, Faridabad, Kota, Alwar, Ajmer. However, we are also open to other cities and towns," he said.

On a whole the company is consciously looking at reducing its exposure in low revenue categories. "Currently 80 per cent of our customers subscribe to package of Rs 875 per 100 hours, where we provide Internet access with 24X7 support and e-mails services. The balance 20 per cent are low Average Revenue per User (ARPU) customers who subscribe to package of Rs 600 per 100 hours, where we do not provide support services. Going forward, we plan to reduce this proportion to 90:10," he said.

This would be done by providing bundled Value Added Services (VAS) including security solutions, e-mail to Fax, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Web hosting. Data Infocom has also registered itself as .in domain name registrar with National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), the designated registry for the `.in' domain names.

The company, which currently has 2.50 lakh customers in the country, has also developed an anti-spam solution, which bars spam at the gateway level.

"The solution Spam Jadoo has been patented, and we have now been approached by a US products company for buying the solution from us. We will look at an offer only if we get the right price," he said but declined to divulge the name of the US company.

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