HCL Infinet-iPass Takes Internet roaming to Indian hinterland

HCL Infinet, the business class national ISP from HCL group, has tied up with
iPass, making the later India's largest virtual ISP. The tie-up expands iPass'
Point Of Presences (POP) in the country to over 200–a large number of them
now, apart from the metros, significantly in major cities and towns of business
activities and tourist attraction. Any business subscriber having an iPass
roaming account, traveling to these places as also Indians traveling abroad,
with a local telephone call (modem dial-in), will be able to enjoy secured
Internet and VPN connectivity from iPass' growing network of 15,000 POPs through
out the world.

According to Saurav Adhikari, president, HCL Infinet, the roaming accounts
will be targeted to executives of global Indian corporations. The accounts will
be retailed both online and off line, in addition to being bundled with Toshiba
laptops sold by parent company HCL Infosystems and also be part of the its VPN
offerings. The account is available at bulks of 25 hours at an approximate rate
of $7 to 8 per hour. Also on offer is a sampler pack of 5 hours costing $45. In
times such as this, when out of hundreds of licensed ISPs just a few remains
operations, Adhikari rightly has a pragmatic approach, "The initial focus
is to start at the top of the pyramid of organizations. And it will be worth
having an ambassador in every large company".

Electra Marian, MD Asia-Pacific and Japan, iPass, sounded highly optimistic
about India, "As we move into 2002 we expect India to generate 30,000 hours
of access per month". She also feels that 2002 will be Asia's year,
"Already iPass' Asia-Pacific revenue are greater than the total worldwide
revenue of our nearest competitor".