The Hindu Business Line : AT&T scaling up India operations with retail

New Delhi, July 20 In a bid to take advantage of a booming telecom market, US-based global telecom giant AT&T is planning to ramp up its presence in India beyond the enterprise segment and long-distance telephony to re-enter the mobile services segment.

The company is also investing in a new under-sea cable that will improve connectivity between India and the North American countries. AT&T is also strengthening the presence of its subsidiaries USinternetworking and Sterling Commerce in Hyderabad and Bangalore respectively.

AT&T had earlier divested its stake in Idea Cellular and is currently offering voice and data connectivity to multinational corporate houses in India

Mr Randall L. Stephenson, Chairman and CEO, AT&T Inc, told Business Line, “We have large business customers here; hopefully, as we scale, we will see where that goes; it could go right down the market (to smaller customers ). Right now, the focus is on the business side. If you look at our history, we start in one place and use that to grow and expand in all segments of the market. I think it’s a terrific opportunity. India is a great growth story, and we want to be a part of it.”

India mark-up

India is the fastest growing and highest revenue-generating market of the 13 economies where AT&T operates in the Asia Pacific region (which excludes Japan). The company’s business grew in India by 40 per cent in 2006.

In the long distance segment, AT&T is adding more nodes in the country. “India is one of our most strategic markets because many of our large customers have a significant, fast-growing presence in India and need global communications support. We already have five global network nodes in India and we will be adding second nodes in Bangalore and Mumbai this year to meet demand,” said Mr Stephenson in response to a questionnaire.

On moving beyond the enterprise segment, Mr Stephenson said, “We are very excited about the Indian market. AT&T intends to be in this country and region for a long time to come. And there may well be opportunities here for us beyond the business market, which we are anxious to explore.”

Undersea cables

“I am pleased that we are extending the reach of our network around the world, with an emphasis on India. We’re also investing in new undersea cables that will help connect Southeast Asia and North America while adding additional bandwidth to meet traffic growth from throughout the region. This will join the 14 existing undersea cable routes that the company uses to carry traffic between the Asia-Pacific region and North America,” he added.

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