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VSNL plans aggressive Internet expansion

India's state-owned telecom firm, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, said on Monday that it planned to invest Rs 3 billion to expand its Internet service network in coming months.

"We plan to roll out ISP services in 24 cities in the next few months depending upon the availability of leased lines," VSNL director Amitabh Kumar said.

He said the investment would be made out of a pool of Rs 45 billion earmarked for capital expenditure.

The Indian government announced in November that the state-telecom giant would lose its monopoly over international telephony in the country by 2002.

It granted VSNL a national Internet service provider licence as part compensation.

Presently, VSNL provides Internet services in 12 Indian cities including New Delhi and Bombay.

It is also the largest bandwidth provider to private Internet service providers.

"In the first phase, eight cities including Kanpur, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Indore and Bhubaneswar would be covered," Kumar said.

The corporation recently started operations in Jalandhar and Coimbatore.

"In the second phase, eight major cities and state capitals would be added to the ISP operation where VSNL would have to start from scratch in terms of infrastructure," Kumar said.

VSNL is aiming to expand its Internet subscriber base to 650,000 in the next two months from 540,000 presently.

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