Sistema Shyam to invest Rs 250cr

Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited (SSTL), a joint venture company between Russia's Sistema and Shyam Group of India, will be investing Rs 250 crore to expand its code division multiple access (CDMA) network in Andhra Pradesh by the end of this year.

Announcing the launch of its MTS services in the state, which completes the company's presence in the entire south corridor and 12 circles across the country, on Tuesday, SSTL president and chief executive Vsevolod Rozanov said the plan for this year was to complete all the 22 circles with an investment of over Rs 5,000 crore. SSTL had tied up with Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), a $10-billion operator in Russia and the eighth largest telecom brand in the world, to franchise the brand in India.

Currently, SSTL has 4.5 million subscribers, including 72,000 for high-speed data services. “Data is the future of our company and is clearly a differential business model than other aggregators. We expect data services to account for one-third of our revenues and achieve break-even by 2013,” Rozanov said.

In Andhra Pradesh, SSTL services will initially be available in 557 towns covering 50 per cent of the population. Eight cities in the state will have MTS mobile broadband services this year, which will be scaled up further next year, he said, adding the company will also come up with post-paid services in the next few weeks.

The MTS-to-MTS charges within Andhra Pradesh will be one paisa for four seconds.

Replying to a query, Rozanov said the company would switch to another vendor if China-based Huawei Technologies’ products were not allowed into India.

It may be recalled that the Indian government has blocked Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corporation from selling telecom network equipment to domestic phone carriers due to security reasons.