Tata Tele draws up growth plan for east
The Telegraph — March 21, 2005

Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) plans to quadruple its operations in the east next year. The company has outlined a capital expenditure of Rs 600 crore to add more than 350 cell sites to the existing 500 by March 2006.

Chief operating officer (eastern hub) Rajesh Puri said, “We will double our network to around 900 cell sites next fiscal and cover more towns and highways to create an umbrella presence in the east.”

TTSL rolled out its services in the east between November 2004 and January 2005 with a capital expenditure of Rs 550 crore.

The company offers CDMA mobile phones, fixed wireless and public telephone booth services under the Indicom brand.

“We have already covered major towns and cities in four locations where we are present,” said Puri. “Next year, we will move into the next level of cities and highways.”

The company is already working on providing connectivity along the Calcutta-Chennai highway to cover the mine areas in Orissa, where it sees a huge potential.

“The rollout roadmap for the next two years is ready,” said Puri. “We have already invested Rs 13,000 crore in creating the infrastructure to cover 1,000 cities with 3,000 cell sites.”

Over the next two years, TTSL will add another 10,000 towns and cities across the country and cover 50,000 kms of major highways.

“By March 2007, we will have 13,000 base stations in place,” added Puri. “In Bengal, we will go up from 90 sites to 125 by March 2006.”

He said with a teledensity of just over 1 per cent in the east compared with the national average of 9 per cent, there is tremendous potential.

TTSL has a subscriber base of 1.25 lakh in the east, of which around 1 lakh are in Calcutta.