Discussing VSNL's plans, acting chairman and managing director Amitabh Kumar told The Financial Express that it will attempt maximum penetration of Internet connectivity by an innovative marketing strategy, to be put in place withing a month. VSNL also plans to expand its bandwidth capacity.

However, Kumar clarified that VSNL will not cross-subsidise services in a bid to lure customers. This is against the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd's (MTNL) decision of not charging local access fees from customers when it launches its Internet services from January next year. According to Kumar, "The quality conscious customer will value quality, bandwidth andnetwork."

VSNL will set up corporate intranet services and help corporates with e-commerce facilities. Subscribers will also be able to access their e-mail via a paging system and an electronic clearing service to clear subscriber's bills is also on the cards.

For access lines, private ISPs will have to get inputs from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) or MTNL. VSNL feels that this poses a serious limitation for private operators, but their entry will help provide high connectivity services.

VSNL has six gateways in operation. With the addition of optical fibre submarine cables, the bandwidth provided by it is over 80 mbps and adequate for meeting the country's requirements with the current level of subscribers. VSNL is prepared to meet the requirements of all ISPs for international Internet connectivity. It is in a positon to provide over 200 leased lines and 100 mbps of international bandwidth.

VSNL plans to bid for domestic long distance services as soon as the sector is opened up.However, according to Kumar, there needs to be more clarity on issues related to the licence fee and revenue sharing.

VSNL's Rs 6,000-crore investment plan (1997-98 to 2001-02) is on schedule and so far Rs 1,000 crore have been spent on FLAG, ATM network, SEA-ME-WE-3, and three STD air stations. Another Rs 700 crore will be invested in the installation of 13 earth stations for providing uplinking related facilities.

On the proposed telecom policy, Kumar said the issues of allocation of licenses and pricing will have to be addressed carefully. The cost estimate of Rs 6.50 per minute for international telephone calls does not include the licence cost payable by VSNL to DoT. The fee, as per the current arrangement works out to Rs 3 per minute, which has to be taken into account and accordingly, the elment of cost on international transmission/switching should be included while determining the ISD call charges. Thus the cost will be Rs 9.50 instead of Rs 6.50 per minute.