| Amitabh Khanna, chief financial officer, VSNL, said, "We are expanding our broadband operations to the retail segment -- including homes -- in 30 cities." |
| Khanna was speaking to mediapersons on the sidelines of VSNL's annual general meeting here today. He said the Tata group has allocated a significant percentage of its total investment for broadband and national long distance. Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata group, said VSNL expects revenues in the range of Rs 300-350 crore from broadband . |
| "It will be a major thrust area for the telecom carrier," Tata said, adding the company will look at providing best broadband connectivity at competitive rates in the domestic and overseas markets. |
| Tata also told shareholders that VSNL had not taken a decision to sell its 2.6 per cent in New Skies Satellite, even though a proposal has been placed with the company's board of directors. |
| "We had bought the stake for around Rs 56 crore and we expect to get Rs 120 crore in case we decide to sell it," he said. |
| In the segment, VSNL will also focus on large corporate customers and would even provide last-mile connectivity to them. |
| Khanna said that the company has recovered around $22 -25 million in dues from foreign carriers via overseas traffic in the first quarter of 2004-05. |
| In the second quarter the company expects $8-10 million to get the remaining $80-100 million dues. We are pursuing with the international foreign carriers to get the money, Khanna added. |
| On Tyco Global Networks, Khanna said that the company was looking at the US-based company but declined to give further details. |
| Tatas and Reliance Infocomm are among the four companies shortlisted from eight that had submitted the initial price band indications for Tyco, which is the undersea cable business of US-based Tyco International. |
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