For Sify Ltd, earlier Satyam Infoway, it has been a roller coaster ride. Sify started operations with a bang and followed it up with a highly successful Nasdaq listing and then rounded it off with one of the biggest Internet acquisitions in India of the Indiaworld portal.
After that the going was tough. It was mauled by the media at home for paying too much for its acquisition and it did not help that Sify was also posting big losses. But the tide has obviously changed. Today, it is the largest aggregator of bandwidth in the country.
In the last quarter, it announced a positive cash profit for the first time in over 12 quarters. Sify also reported positive cash generation from operations for the first time since its inception.
More importantly, the Rs 200-crore-plus Internet service provider (ISP) became the second Indian company after Infosys to announce that it would go in for a maiden sponsored ADS (American Depository Shares) issue by the middle of August.
Sanjay Pillai spoke with R Ramaraj, managing director and CEO, Sify, who is becoming increasingly vocal about the concerns of the ISP industry and its financial health.
Excerpts:
Amidst all the noise about the inter-connection usage charges (IUC) announced by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), ISPs have yet again been given the cold shoulder. How do you react to this?
Unfortunately, interconnectivity has made the headlines purely on voice-related grounds. The data market, which is what the ISPs pre-dominantly cater to, has been ignored.
This is despite the fact that in 1999, TRAI had recognised ISPs as service providers and came under the ambit of IUC. Now TRAI has indicated that ISPs would be called by the end of this month after they resolve the IUC issues related to voice.
Are you happy that ISPs are being invited and that there could be an end to the imbroglio over the IUC regime?
Please understand that between them, basic telecom service providers like BSNL and MTNL earn close to Rs 1,600 crore annually because of the dial-up services offered by the ISPs, and another Rs 2,500 crore through about 8,000-odd leased E1/R2 links [connections between telephone exchanges and ISP
