Indus In Talks To Expand Pay Phone Business

After bagging a Rs 100-crore contract from Hughes Ispat, the basic telecom licensee in Maharashtra, Indus Telecom is in discussions with other operators to hawk its pay phone solution. The Mumbai-based vendor plans to roll out 5,000 such public call offices (PCOs) in the state.

Indus Telecom in August entered into a partnership with Hughes Ispat to set up, manage and operate the business of pay phone franchise locations across Maharashtra and Goa. The locations will have the Indus Telecom pay phones. The vendor expects to accrue revenues of Rs 150 crore in the first year of business.

Indus Telecom vice-chairman Ravi Kailas said, "We are in discussions with other private basic telecom operators. Our aim is to provide comprehensive pay phone and phone card management solutions for basic telecom service providers through our three lines of business: management of pay phone franchise locations, pay phone instruments and phone cards."

The company, an associate of Indus Inc of Wisconsin (US), will provide pay phones in Maharashtra and Goa using Hughes Ispat's wireless in local loop solution and it optic fibre network. The phones are designed to accept three modes of payment: phone cards, credit card or cash.

The contract with Hughes Ispat is structured into three phases.

The first phase involves starting a chain of manned franchise locations offering PCO/STD/ISD services and certain value-added services in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Pune and Goa. The second phase involves expansion of this network to urban areas initially and then rural areas. And setting up an integrated network across the state and identifying locations for unmanned franchise businesses.

Kailas said the pay phones would be uniquely positioned in the market, although the branding of the product has not been finalised. He expects the product to create new media opportunities by way of advertisements on the liquid crystal display screen of the pay phone, panel signages and personalised corporate messages on the phone cards.

Although the Indus pay phone solution does not come cheap _ at Rs 200,000 each going by the Hughes Ispat order _ Kailas expects to finalise some more orders in future. The company's competitors include GPT of the UK in the pay phone business and players like Schlumberger in phone cards.