Basic telephony operator Tata Teleservices (TTL) is planning to expand its reach to 20 cities in Andhra Pradesh in 2003.

Ajay Pandey, chief operating officer, TTL, said, "We intend to reach to 18-20 cities next year".

Currently, it offers limited mobility services besides the land drawn telephones in 10 cities of Andhra Pradesh.

The services are operational at Hyderabad, Vijaywada, Visakhapatnam, Guntur and Eluru. It has extended its services to Rajahmundry, Tirupati, Nellore, Warangal and Kakinada.

"Our subscriber base is around 1,75,000 in the state in both wireline and wireless services. On the ground till March last year, we have deployed Rs 1,400 crore in these 10 cities," Pandey said.

"This is an year of consolidation. We are augmenting our capacity to serve the increasing traffic in these 10 cities. The traffic has increased due to limited mobility options and crash in the rates of long distance telephony. We are investing Rs 260 crore this year on consolidation", Pandey added.

Meanwhile, TTL is expected to install 1,000 village public telephones (VPT) by the end of this month as part of its universal service obligations under its license agreement with the department of telecommunications for Andhra Pradesh.

TTL will cover 2,500-2,700 villages by the end of September and it will go upto 3,500 by December 2002 under VPT programme.

Ajay Pandey, chief operating officer, TTL said that the company has earmarked Rs 40 crore for setting up VPTs.

"We have already committed Rs 16-18 crore for VPTs and we are on course to meet our target."

Pandey said the company was facing several problems in extending VPTs to difficult geographical terrains as well as naxalite infected areas. Besides, there are certain villages with less than 10-12 inhabitants.

The company is expected to submit its progress on VPT to Pramod Mahajan, minister of telecommunications, IT and parliamentary affairs sometime this month.

The minister is expected to review the progress on VPTs by all the basic service operators in June.

Considering difficult geographical terrain, TTL is using VSAT (very small aperture terminal) technology apart from GSM and PMP wireless technology to serve villages.

It has tied up with Gilat Satellite Networks to provide 100 fixed rural satellite telephony network in Andhra Pradesh.

On whether the company has branded its VPTs under Telesmart, Pandey replied in negative.

"We have not branded our VPT services and we have no such plans at the moment. Since there are no economic activities in these villages, there are operational issues and those related to revenues," Pandey pointed out.