Escotel Outlines Plans For Telecom Investment
March 31, 2011
NEW DELHI -- Escotel Mobile Communications Ltd. plans to invest 14 billion rupees ($390.8 million) over the next four years to operate cellular-telephone services in three northern and southern Indian cities. The investment by Escotel, a joint venture between Escorts Ltd. of India and First Pacific Co. of Hong Kong, will reach 35 billion rupees in 10 years, company officials said. Group Chairman Parada Monday said Escotel will begin operating cellular services in several parts of the states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Kerala this October. He said the network will extend over the main towns and highways in the three states, and he estimated it will have about 200,000 subscribers by the fourth year. First Pacific is a unit of the First Pacific Group, which has business in banking, real estate and marketing. Escorts is an Indian tractor and motorcycle maker. Escotel chose Lucent Technologies of the U.S. earlier this year to build the cellular-telephone networks in the three states. Lucent will also install a microwave-communications network in each area. Cellular phones are a luxury in India. Fewer than two out of every 100 people have a normal phone line, one of the lowest penetration rates in the developing world. Currently, mobile phones are operational in only four large Indian cities.
