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After selling off its ISP division for 270 crore, C Sivasankaran–promoted Sterling group's Dishnet Wireless' next venture is aimed at expanding its cellular business. Wireless is not new to Dishnet. The Dishnet group operates cellular services in Chennai and Tamil Nadu under the Aircel brand. In a bold move, Dishnet Wireless decided to start mobile services in 10 circles in the northern and eastern parts of India and plans to invest Rs 2,000 crore. The project is aptly nicknamed as "Project Kanchenjunga." At a time when smaller and regional GSM players are selling their stakes to larger players, Dishnet decided to go ahead and obtained licenses under Unified Access Service License (UASL) in the B and C category circles, which were for long considered as non-lucrative circles. Dishnet Wireless has already placed order with Ericsson for infrastructure equipment and services for GSM/GPRS/EDGE, unified messaging system, MMS, and intelligent network (IN).

According to media reports, it is all set to launch its services in Jammu and Kashmir soon. In all the circles in which it will start services, it is pitted against both CDMA and GSM operators who have a national footprint. For some time, Aircel was up for grabs with companies including Hutch showing interest in it. However, regulatory hurdles stopped Hutch from going ahead with the acquisition. In February this year, Russian company AFK Sistema agreed to buy 49 percent of Aircel for $450 million. This offer was bigger than Hutchison's offer to buy 49 percent in Aircel for $362 million. The agreement failed to materialize. It is
reportedly negotiating the sale of 30 percent stake in Aircel to private equity investors to raise money for financing cellular rollout in the 10 circles. Considering Sivasankaran's excellent deal-making capabilities, it is hoped that this time he succeeds.

Dishnet Wireless also embarked on its ambitious plan of offering broadband Internet services under the brand name Red, by creating Wi-Fi zones across luxury hotels, restaurants, coffee chains, airports, resorts, commercial complexes, banks, and hospitals. It has invested around Rs 250 crore on this project. In the first phase, the company plans to start its services in eight cities: Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, and Ahmedabad. In the second phase, the company plans to cover 38 cities by March 2006 with 6,000 hotspots. Dishnet also plans to start WiMax services.

Dishnet Wireless's other divisions include: broadband wireless Internet, telecom services group (TSG), and software division (ETH). The TSGgroup provides turnkey solutions to telecom companies.TSG has managed to bag order from Tata Teleservices for CDMA network in 17 circles. Its software division, ETH Research Lab, does in-house software development. Only time will tell whether Dishnet Wireless' gamble of becoming a pan India player succeeds or not.

Sudesh Prasad