Pacnet Increased Stake In Indian Joint Venture To 74%

There is more investment coming into the telecom sector. Asian telecommunications service provider Pacnet said it has increased its stake to 74% from the current 55% in its Indian joint venture in India. The company plans to apply for national long distance (NLD) and international long distance (ILD) communications licenses.
Bill Barney, Chief Executive Officer of Pacnet, said: "Together with our joint venture partner FutureWorld India Pvt. Ltd., we have further capitalised Pacific Internet India Pvt. Ltd to support our network roll out in India post receipt of ILD and NLD licenses." The additional capital brought in by Pacnet is not known.
Pacnet recently received approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board of India to increase its shareholding in the joint venture and to apply for ILD and NLD licenses. It may obtain the Letter of Intent from the Department of Telecom of India soon.
Pacnet currently offers Internet services in six Indian cities including Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Gurgaon and Hyderabad. The company is looking at Pan India coverage, besides offering its full suite of network services including International Private Line (IPL), IP VPN, Ethernet IPL, IP Transit, Direct Internet Access, as well as managed services.
Pacnet's managed services include its recently launched Media Delivery Service that enables enterprises to distribute digital media around the world without investing in a costly high-bandwidth infrastructure.
According to Barney, "India will remain one of the world's fastest growing markets."
India's demand for bandwidth is also forecast to grow and latest figures from research firm TeleGeography has forecast bandwidth demand in India to grow from 157,041 Mbps in 2009 to 1,344,141 Mbps in 2014.
"This supports our strategy to focus on India as one of our key countries to invest aggressively in 2009, as we will continue to tap the continued economic strength of India, and support the country's demand for added network connectivity," Barney added.