Tata Power Broadband Powering Ahead

When Tata Power, one of the largest power utilities in the country, announced
its plans to foray into the telecom sector to become a carrier’s carrier,
there was hardly any surprise. It was in-line with the international trends. But
the speed at which the company built its fiber optic network in Mumbai, has
indeed surprised many. Tata Power Broadband is the first player to commercially
launch its 575 km long broadband network in the city and already, players like
Hathway Cable and Datacom, are using its network for cable TV signals and other
broadband services.

Tata Power Broadband has ambitious plans for the broadband market while many
other players have either frozen or pulled out of this high-stake game. The
company plans to spend Rs 880 crore for laying fiber optic in Delhi, Mumbai,
Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad, and linking up these cities together. Among these,
the Mumbai-Pune inter city network is almost ready for commercial use. When
completed Tata Power Broadband’s network would be 5,000 km long and will offer
connectivity to fifty-three commercially important cities.

The network has many firsts to its credit. It is the first DWDM-based
intelligent optical network in South East Asia. The IP backbone is built using
Cisco Gigabit switching router, another first in India, and supports a variety
of high-speed traffic, such as voice, IP and video. The various services offered
are MPLS VPN, IPSec VPN, terawave (wavelength service), teralink (SDH service)
and co-location.

Apart from moving to the market early, beating the likes of Reliance, Tata
Power Broadband has also strewn together a number of alliances. The partnership
with the PSU gas major GAIL will enable the company to make use of the 1,000 km
long RoW owned by the former. But most importantly, what makes Tata Broadband a
player to reckon with, is the fact that it would act as the backbone for other
interests of Tata Group in the basic and cellular markets. Considering the
natural synergies between broadband and basic phone services, the company has
picked up a stake in the Hyderabad-based Tata Teleservices, which plans to
extend basic services to most of the part of the country. It is anybody’s
guess that Tata Teleservices would ride piggy back on Tata Power Broadband’s
network, for this objective. While Tata Power Broadband is donning the garb of
synergy between the communications businesses of the group, another power
utility which made a high-profile entry into the broadband market seems to have
put a brake on its plans. BSES Telecom has put on hold its plans of building its
network in other parts of the country, and at the moment is concentrating on its
ISP business in Mumbai. BSES Telecom’s rethink on its strategy came about ever
since Reliance picked up a substantial stake in the company and has restricted
its services within the western suburbs of the city. Though the company has
recently announced its plans to fan-out to cities like Delhi and Hyderabad, it
remains to be seen whether it would be a part of the Reliance’s overall
broadband plan. BSES Telecom will need to pull its socks up fast, with Tata
Power Broadband coming into the picture, and MTNL waiting in the wings with its
broadband plans.

MT Jeevan