As you walk into his spacious yet sparsely furnished office, what catches your eye is a certificate proudly displayed on the softboard above his desk. It's a certificate given to him by the employees of the network division of the company, conferring on him the Slave Driver of the Year award! The unbridled enthusiasm that pervades the office makes one feel that the title is, perhaps, out of place. But, for a person who drives himself hard, this award, perhaps, encapsulates the spirit of the man behind the early-March 2001 launch of TataNova, the Internet services provider from the House of Tata.

N. Srinath, the dynamic Tata veteran of 15 years, brings to bear his solid project management experience in the field of high technology to his current assignment as chief executive officer of Tata Internet Services Limited. The recent launch of TataNova, a ‘class A’ Internet service provider, represents a significant step in the group’s endeavour to be a leader in providing Internet-related services to consumers and businesses.

In the midst of the product roll-out, Mr. Srinath took some time off to talk to about his plans and strategies for making Tata Internet the most preferred brand for consumer and corporate Internet access services. Excerpts from the hour-long interview with K A Anantharam:

On the access service business
It is true that the stand-alone Internet access service business by itself is not a paying proposition. The world over Internet service providers (ISPs) have successfully modelled their business around revenue sharing with telecom companies. For instance, for every hour that a consumer surfs on the Net, only Rs.6 goes to the ISP with the balance going to the telecom company.

Outside India, telecom companies realise the fact that ISPs generate traffic for them and they are more than willing to enter into revenue-sharing agreements. The fact that most of the basic telephony services across the world are in private hands helps. In India this revenue-sharing model will take some time to come in.

At the moment, it is difficult to convince the state-owned telecom companies to part with a portion of their revenues to the ISPs even if the latter generate a lot of traffic for them. But I am sure, with time, they will see reason and start sharing revenues with them.

In any case, for access service providers the business is a very profitable proposition once they cross a threshold subscriber base. My guess is that any level of subscribers in excess of 300,000 will yield ISPs large profits, because after this level the incremental cost of providing access is far less than the incremental revenues they generate.

On TataNova
The first product that our company has launched is TataNova. This is a plain-vanilla dial-up access product and is the first step towards our goal of providing consumers and corporate businesses a more comprehensive range of services across the Internet value chain.

The significant difference is that our service comes with a unique combination of strengths. Apart from a very robust and resilient network, a 24x7 customer-care operation and a strong IT base, we bring several other finer points to the table. The accumulated experience of the Tata Group in the areas of telecom equipment, telecom services and IT services combined with the strong domain knowledge across multiple end-user industries adds great strength to our efforts in creating services specifically around customers.

Even at the retail customer end we will move up the spectrum to provide broadband, or near-broadband, services for individual consumers. In the interim we will immediately graduate to providing ISDN services, which though marginally expensive, are making inroads into the home-use segment. ISDN has already become popular with the SME {small and medium enterprises} segment and for the quality-cost analysis it makes sense for heavy duty home segment users to go in for this. Today it could be ISDN, tomorrow it may be DSL, who knows!

On services to the retail consumer
TataNova, the dial-up access service, with an easy-to-remember number and speedy dial-up, is a quality product with dedicated bandwidth that assures fast surfing and downloads. We have built up adequate redundancy in our network to ensure that our service does not go down. We are targeting over 100,000 retail subscribers of the access service by the end of this year.

We are also planning to make a significant foray into the public internet centre (PIC) arena with over 2,000 such centres being planned across the country in the next few years. We have already tied up with Bharat Petroleum to set up such centres at their key outlets in major cities.

We have also created a horizontal portal, tatanova.com, which is designed as a platform for various kinds of information, entertainment and other consumer-friendly services. The site will be an aggregation of portals developed internally and other partner portals aimed at providing a comprehensive Internet experience to the consumer.

I believe that it is here that we would score over most others since we bring considerable experience and domain knowledge in end-user industries to give the most effective and efficient solutions to the corporate sector.

While you are right that some of the above services would take time to sell in this country due to psychological barriers, I believe that data centre services and application services are very much like outsourcing IT services.

On whether B2B services will succeed in India
You are right that B2B in the Indian context may take a lot of time to evolve, given the psychological barriers.

However, in today’s environment companies are increasingly finding themselves under pressure on the cost front. Electronic B2B exchanges would go a long way in providing the reach and transparency in the purchasing function for companies.

We propose to start off at the very basic level and provide cataloguing services to begin with. We will then move up the value chain and provide manufacturers a wide and secure platform to complete their entire sourcing activities without any major investment at their end. True, the entire supply chain in the country may not get covered due to the limited ability of small units to have EDI facilities, but if they are to survive it is imperative that they invest small amounts in the basics of such a data exchange facility.

On the future plans for the company
The key is to scale up operations as quickly as possible. With services to the corporate sector, we will be able to scale up very quickly.

On the access business we will move aggressively to partner with smaller players in the B and C category areas of the country. In such an alliance we will lend our Tata brand name and lease capacity to expand our access and network operations.

We are also geared to enter new areas as and when they open up. One such area is voice over internet protocol (VoIP). When regulations permit, which should be in a year’s time, according to me, Tata Internet will be there to grab a share of this market. However, in this particular area how big an impact it is going to make in the corporate sector is unclear, because VoIP does not, yet, have the basic features of the telephone systems of today and there is the issue of clarity of voice and call quality.

On the possibility of the group bidding for a stake in Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited
I am not aware if we are, indeed, going to bid for a stake in VSNL {the country’s sole international telephony services provider and, till date, the largest Internet access service provider}. But as and when the divestment happens, and assuming we do bid for the stake and succeed, I see tremendous synergies with VSNL. For starters, we can expand our access service exponentially and leverage the network infrastructure to provide high quality services, like VPN {virtual private networks}, to customers. There are many more, but these are the ones that immediately strike me.

Services from Tata Internet
The key service areas of Tata Internet Services Limited in the areas of consumer services and corporate services are:

CONSUMER SERVICES

• Internet access – starting with dial-up access services, Tata Internet will move toward ISDN and near-broadband services in key cities across the country. With a single easy-to-remember number and a speedy dial-up, this service promises to be a quality product with a dedicated bandwidth that assures fast surfing and downloads.
• Public Internet centres – the company plans to set up a chain of over 2,000 Internet centres across the country over the next few years. These centres will help the general public access information of all kinds at the touch of a screen. The company has also tied up with Bharat Petroleum to use its key outlets in all major cities to set up such centres.
• Portals - the company’s horizontal portal, tatanova.com, promises to be a wide platform for various kinds of information, entertainment and other consumer-friendly services. The site will be an aggregation of portals developed internally and other partner portals, and aims to provide a comprehensive Internet experience to the consumer.

CORPORATE SERVICES

• Internet connectivity and network services – which basically offers high quality access services based on a network architecture that ensures maximum availability and redundant leased lines that allow major metros to have multiple alternative paths in case any main links fail. The architecture is scalable to augment bandwidth when required.
• Internet data centres – the company is building 30,000 sq. ft. of space towards data centre in Mumbai, New Delhi and Hyderabad. These centres have state-of-the-art infrastructure, with precision-controlled cooling systems, power conditioning equipment, back-up power supply, etc.

Other services include application services, B2B net marketplaces, managed network services, messaging solutions and disaster recovery services.