[nukkad] Info: AT&T enters Indian 'phone market

[Harshal Chhaya <hchhaya@epsilon.pair.com>]

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- 'shal


[Source: Wired News]

         AT&T Buys Big into India Mobile-Phone Market

                     by David Lazarus 

                     AT&T will invest US$1.5
                     billion in building a mobile-phone network
                     in India intended to draw at a least a
                     million subscribers in one of the world's
                     fastest growing telecom markets, the
                     company's Indian subsidiary announced
                     Wednesday. AT&T now claims only about
                     11,000 subscribers in the region. 

                     "This investment marks our commitment to
                     the Indian market and the entire
                     Asia-Pacific region," said AT&T
                     spokeswoman Alice Nagle. "We're putting
                     our money where our mouth is." 

                     The investment is being undertaken by
                     Birla-AT&T Communications, a joint
                     venture in which AT&T holds a 49-percent
                     stake and India's Aditya Birla group the
                     remainder. "It is our strategic intent to
                     build the country's largest cellular
                     network," Birla-AT&T CEO Kumar
                     Mangalam Birla told reporters in New
                     Delhi. 

                     AT&T is the largest foreign investor in
                     India's telecommunications sector.
                     Birla-AT&T said it expects to see profits
                     from the mobile-phone network after four
                     years. 

                     Birla-AT&T won a 10-year license to
                     operate its network in India's wealthiest
                     state, Maharashtra, as well as nearby
                     Gujarat and the Goa resort area on the
                     Arabian Sea coast. Not included in the
                     licensing arrangement is the city of
                     Bombay, Maharashtra's state capital and
                     India's financial center. 

                     India, like many Asian nations, is on the
                     info-tech fast track, encouraging rapid
                     investment in advanced digital systems
                     and, in more remote areas, bypassing
                     analog technology altogether. Booming
                     demand for cellular phones is the driving
                     force in constructing network
                     infrastructure, not just because of their
                     value as status symbols but also because
                     of the unreliability of existing phone
                     services. 

                     India has one of the world's lowest
                     telecom penetration rates, with only one
                     line per hundred citizens, compared to a
                     global average of eleven lines per hundred
                     people, according to a report released
                     Wednesday by market researchers Frost
                     & Sullivan. The market is expected to
                     grow by more than 44 percent over the
                     next three years, adding an additional 24
                     million phone lines. 

                     "Wireless is a wonderful technology in this
                     case," Nagle said. "You don't have to put
                     the investment in land lines. It's much
                     quicker to implement and less expensive."


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