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Karuturi.com foray into telecom sector

Our Bureau

BANGALORE, Dec. 24

KARUTURI.COM, a floriculture-turned-infotech venture, is now going in for a complete makeover as a telecom infrastructure provider. The Bangalore-based company plans to invest Rs 100 crore over the next 18 months in setting up infrastructural facilities to provide broadband gateway and connectivity solutions.

According to Mr K.S. Ramakrishna, Managing Director, Karuturi.com, the telecom foray plans include setting up of international satellite gateways in eight cities, a teleport in Bangalore and an optical fibre link between Dubai and Mumbai. The company aim s to be a pure network and bandwidth provider and shift its focus from the floriculture business.

The company was considering private placement to rope in more funds. However, the immediate needs would be met out of internal accruals, Mr Ramakrishna said.

Already, an investment close to Rs 4 crore has been made in establishing the first satellite gateway in Bangalore. The successive ones are due to come up in Hyderabad and Chennai in about a month's time. Karuturi has leased a Ku band transponder on satel lite NSS 703 to deliver its broadband services.

The company has tied up with CONCERT, a global venture of British Telecom and AT&T, to bring the direct high speed connectivity from the Trans-Atlantic Optical Fibre Networks for the Indian market.

It is targeting B2B customers and software companies, medical transcription units and ISPs, mainly in the South with its high concentration of users. Several ISPs have been roped in as customers. Among them are Condor Infotech, Om Infoway and City Online .

``We aim to be a bandwidth wholesaler and provide international quality bandwidth for the Indian consumers at lower prices,'' said Karuturi.com Director, Mr Sudipto Ghosh, who was formerly with Caltiger.com. The ASP model will be adopted to provide meter ed solutions.

The company is considering hiving off its floriculture division as a subsidiary or demerge its operations. ``We have filed for a name change with the Registrar of Companies,'' Mr Ramakrishna said.