Wipro Chairman, Azim Premji, launches $1B PE fund focussed on India

Wipro chairman Azim Premji, among the richest Indians, is casting his net wider. Known as an astute investor who picked stocks in his personal capacity across an array of undervalued but promising companies, Mr Premji is now launching a private equity fund with an investible corpus of at least $1 billion. The fund, PremjiInvest, is expected to be sector-agnostic. And if insiders are to be believed, it may even shun pure-play IT services companies.

As a first step, Mr Premji named Sudip Banerjee, who till recently was president of the enterprise solutions business, as director on the advisory board of PremjiInvest. This is probably the biggest private equity play by a domestic corporate honcho.

However, there are India-origin funds that are bigger—ICICI Ventures, for instance. With about 80% stake in Wipro, Mr Premji’s wealth in terms of market capitalisation is pegged at around Rs 68,000 crore. And the 61-year-old promoter is believed to be taking home well over Rs 500 crore in dividends and salary annually.

Click here to read the complete story at economic times

Venturewoods: Sponsor a Business

Good resource for people who have good ideas but need resources:

Venturewoods
February 28th, 2008


Sponsor a Business
Dear Friends,

This is one of the better ventures I have come across, leveraging the power of community to empower entrepreneurs.

Its a matchmaking project, connecting entrepreneurs who need loans with lenders who can offer loans.

If an entrepreneurs needs Rs. 50,000 as loan, he can receive it from multiple lenders , maybe in smaller chunks of Rs. 5000 each. Similarly a lender can spread his loan of Rs. 2 Lacs, across maybe 10 or 20 businesses.

Last week statistics revealed on the site are inspiring to know, the model seems to be clearly working.

Close to 4000 lenders have joined, 1400+ entrepreneurs have been funded collectively amounting to Rs. 2.5 crores.

This idea needs to spread fast, it is currently being positioned to help poor people with a zeal to do business, but who lack basic resources.

To ensure that the people do not misuse, the project works with local micro finance companies.

Surprisingly in India, there is only one field partner listed, it is Delhi based Somaiya Group.

Pls, Pls share and forward the details about the venture to lenders, micro finance agencies, as well as worthy entrepreneurs.

And yes, the link to the project is http://www.kiva.org

Regards,
Ajay Sanghani
Founder, ITVidya.com
Cell : 098200 20753

Cleantech Group Comes To India; Vinod Khosla, Chair, Jaswinder Kaur, Country Director - sas VC Circle

VC Circle says:

The Cleantech Group, which is a network of investors and companies in the cleantech industry, has set up shop in India. So far it had only presence in North America, China and Europe. Leading venture capitalist Vinod Khosla will serve as Chair and Jaswinder Kaur, executive director of the Indian Venture Capital Association (IVCA) in Delhi, will be the Country Director of the Indian arm of the group.

Cleantech Group was earlier known as Cleantech Venture Network, which “defined and introduced cleantech as an investment category in 2002. It has some 8,000 cleantech investors, 9,500 companies and professional services organisations worldwide and a core group of 1,300 members with assets exceeding $6 trillion. They include venture capital firms, investment banks, limited partners, governments and major corporations via offices in North America, Europe, China and India. Read the full articl at VC Circle Cleantech Group Comes To India; Vinod Khosla, Chair, Jaswinder Kaur, Country Director

US PE biggies raising more money to invest in Asia!

VC Circle says:

It seems US sub-prime crisis is turning out to be a boon rather than a bane for fundamentally stronger markets in Asia. A host of private equity biggies - like Carlyle and JPMorgan - are now training their investment flows towards high growth markets in Asia - like China and India. According to a Bloomberg report, Carlyle Group, the world’s second-biggest private-equity firm, plans to raise as much as $4 billion to invest in Asian companies. Click to read the full article at VC Cicrle US Private Equity Biggies To Raise More Money For Investing In Asia

$300M India Rizing Fund for investments in Defence Sector

Here's th direct link to the article on Business Standard : Venture fund for defence firms

The $100-million fund, which has the option to raise a further $200 million, will benefit small and medium enterprises engaged in defence production

A first of its kind venture fund for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) engaged in defence production, proposed by Mumbai-based India Rizing Fund, is awaiting final clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

The Fund proposes to invest $100 million in Indian defence SME's.

The proposal has received the go-ahead of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, the Department of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs. However, since the Department of Defence had not given its clearance till February 8, the FIPB deferred the proposal for consideration at a later date.

The Fund, which is promoted by former India head of ANZ Investment Bank Rajesh Narayan, has an option to raise another $ 200 million. It has a 10-year duration, with an option to increase it by four more years. More such funds may be created in the future for investment into the Indian defence production sector.

Advisors to India Rizing Fund include Rana Kapoor, founder and managing director of Yes Bank, Rahul Chowdhary, CEO, Tata Strategic Electronics, Lt Gen V J Sundaram, leader flight vehicle design team of Prithvi missile and former RBI deputy governor Vepa Kamesam.

The proposed scheme will offer two categories of units of par value of Rs 10 lakh each to investors and Rs 100 each for promoters and management of the company. Funds from the scheme will be invested in niche areas of defence production which include tanks, aircraft and war gaming simulators, as well as radars, military aircraft, missile launch systems and howitzer guns.

According to industry estimates, there are 5,000-6,000 SMEs registered with a Defence Ministry arm contributing extensively to projects like the Light Combat Aircraft and Arjun Main battle tank.

Experts point out that with India planning to acquire multi role combat aircraft (MRCA), SMEs can benefit from the offset obligation of such a defence deal, under which, the selected aircraft manufacturer has to source 50 per cent of the components from India.

“We expect the offset obligation to be around $5 billion and this is the chance for Indian defence related SMEs to reach out globally,” said Surjith Haridas, director, defence division, CII.

Experts also said that Indian defence SMEs will also benefit from a government target of sourcing 70 per cent of defence requirements from indigenous sources by 2010.

A recent Assocham-Ernst and Young report had put the total size of the defence market in India for private sector at $700 million, which is expected to have a growth potential of 20 per cent by 2010. The study found that more than 5,000 companies are supplying around 20 per cent to 25 per cent of components and sub-assemblies to state-owned defence production companies.

Interview with BlueRun Ventues

VC Circle has posted an interview excerps of Sasha Mirchandani (senior investment director, based in Mumbai; he is also one of the founding members of Mumbai Angels) and Vineet Buch (Principal, and a co-founder of Riya, a visual search firm funded by BlueRun) from BlueRun Ventures. I had met Vineet during the Silicon Valley trip at the Plug and Play Tech center in San Jose; he is a great person. Here's the direct link to the full excerpts at VC Circle.

Intel Capital leads Series A investment in 123Greetings.com

Here'sthe link to the press release

New York, USA & Mumbai, India – 17 January 2008 - Intel Capital and 123Greetings, a leading provider of online e-card services, today announced the first closing of a Series A investment in IntraSoft Technologies Ltd, the owner of 123Greetings, led by Intel Capital. The proceeds from the investment are intended to support future product launches, sales and marketing, infrastructure and expansion both in India and internationally.

"Online greeting cards have become a standard form of modern socialization around the world,” said Arvind Sodhani, president, Intel Capital. "Intel Capital looks forward to working with 123Greetings as they advance to the next stage of their growth and expansion."

"We are pleased to receive this support from Intel Capital," said Arvind Kajaria, founder, 123Greetings.com. "Their investment provides us with the opportunity to further our strong position in the online expressions space and take full advantage of growth opportunities."

"Our investment in Intrasoft/123Greetings highlights Intel Capital's interest in India’s technology industry," said Sudheer Kuppam, Intel Capital's managing director for India, Japan, Australasia and South-East Asia. "123Greetings is well established in this market segment. This, combined with their strong content development team, attracted our attention."

Intel Capital's investment comes from the US$250M Intel Capital India Technology Fund which was founded in December 2005. This fund invests in Indian technology companies to help stimulate local technological innovation and the continued growth of India's Information Technology industry. Intel Capital has invested in more than 40 companies across eight cities in India since 1998.

About Intel Capital
Intel Capital, Intel's global investment organization, makes equity investments in innovative technology start-ups and companies worldwide. Intel Capital invests in a broad range of companies offering hardware, software and services targeting enterprise, home, mobility, health, consumer Internet, semiconductor manufacturing, and cleantech. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than US$6 billion in approximately 1,000 companies in more than 40 countries. In that timeframe, about 157 portfolio companies have gone public on various exchanges around the world and another 187 have been acquired by other companies. In 2007, Intel Capital invested about US$639 million in 166 deals with approximately 37 percent of funds invested outside the United States. For more information on Intel Capital and its differentiated advantages, visit www.intel.com/capital.

About 123Greetings.com
123Greetings is the world's leading online destination for human expressions reaching over 200 million people annually. Drawing from its tag line "Giving Life to your Expressions" the service inculcates a sense of personalization that relates to the users on an emotional level. Its offering of over 20,000 greeting cards covers a mix of 2,500 special events and everyday celebrations. Its applications & widgets for social networks & blogs allow users ubiquitous access across multiple devices and platforms. For more information on the company, visit www.123greetings.com/info/.

ICICI Bank Launches Mobile Banking Application - ContentSutra

Click here to read the original story at ContentSutra

ICICI Bank has introduced iMobile, a mobile application that allows customers to use it in a manner similar to the Internet banking transactions, including transferring funds to ICICI and non ICICI Bank accounts, pay utility bills and apply for insurance premiums. The facility is being offered free of charge, and covers Savings accounts, Demat, Credit Card and Loan accounts. This is a significant move, coming from India’s largest private sector bank (and second largest, overall, after State Bank of India). ET adds that 22 percent of the bank’s transactions last year were via the Internet, up from 2 percent five years ago. The application can be downloaded by SMSing iMobile to 56767661,or via their website. There’s a flash based demo that you can try.

I just installed the application: it required GPRS for downloading, or will need transferred via the PC - that might limit usage, and ICICI would do well to tie up with a handset manufacturer. The application can use both SMS and GPRS. I received a security code for activation of the service. The activation process took around 5 minutes, over GPRS. The service identified my bank account based on my mobile number on its own. Some features - like checking for the last 5 transactions, did not work. I wasn’t able to figure out how to activate the bill payment, though. The application has been developed by c-sam, promoted by telecom veteran Sam Pitroda. For starters, it’s likely that the bank will try to get its Internet banking customers to use mobile application (their website now has a prominent iMobile banner and link). The bank to bank funds transfer can be used as a payment system. If banks start launching their own mobile payment services, I wonder what will become of independent third party application services?

A $25M Innovation Fund Takes Flight in India

India's National Association of Software and Services Companies on Friday launched a $25 million innovation fund in collaboration with ICICI Knowledge Park.


Investors include India’s largest software services company, Tata Consultancy Services, the country’s leading private telecom operator, Bharti Airtel, and ICICI Knowledge Park.


On the drawing board for over a couple of years, the Knowledge Park Innovation Fund (NIIF) is finally expected to be operational within the next three months and to attract a first round of investments from 8-10 institutional investors. Follow-on rounds are expected to attract $40 million to $50 million.


NIIF will provide seed stage investments to encourage intellectual property-driven innovations in emerging technologies.


“While the larger firms can invest in innovation, startups and young firms in India often fail to scale up due to the lack of timely availability of seed capital," Kiran Karnik, president of the National Association of Software and Services Companies, said in a statement.

Click here to read the full article at Red Herring

Misc. year end/start stories

Top 10 Chip Stories to Watch in 2008

Deal Radar 2008: Kayak Consolidates Travel

Are 'Anywhere' Applications Getting Somewhere?


Four Wheels for the Masses: The $2,500 Car

IIT Kharagpur alumnus develops an online food ordering service for web surfers in India

Hats off to Priyanka!!! Here's a link to an article covered by Economic Times India on her venture - www.hungrybangalore.com

An online food ordering service for web surfers
19 Dec, 2007, 0223 hrs IST,Anjana Alex, TNN

In 2006, when Priyanka, a senior software engineer at Ketera, approached a venture capitalist for some help with a business plan, discouragement was what she got. He told her it was best if professionals start their own business when they are 30+. The young generation, according to him, was not mature enough to take business decisions.

If Priyanka had paid heed, then this tech town would have had to wait for a few more years for hungrybangalore.com.

A premier online restaurant ordering service for the hungry web surfer, it allows you to place orders or make reservations online at participating restaurants for free. Your order is then immediately sent to the restaurant where it is prepared accurately and made available to you at the time and date you specify. You may choose to pick up your order for carry out, have it delivered at your place, or have it ready at your specified time to dine in depending on your preference and the services of the restaurant.

“We always felt a need for an online food ordering system when we worked late at office or on weekends. And with traffic conditions worsening day by day, people prefer to eat at home. It’s also difficult to find tables at peak time if one lands up at the restaurant without any reservation,” says Priyanka.

Thus, hungrybangalore was to serve as an interface between restaurants and their customers and also to ease the ordering process. With menus, reviews and maps available online, it becomes very simple to order food for home deliveries or for just booking a table. And as Priyanka points out, ordering or booking through the internet cuts out any chance of miscommunication between the user and the person who receives the order at the restaurant.

Moreover, the user is provided with a single platform to order across different restaurants in the city.
So why did this IIT Kharagpur alumnus and software veteran quit her cushy job for this plunge? “The young IT crowd is much more confident of themselves than ever before. The media has played a very important role in highlighting the success stories of young entrepreneurs and this inspires a lot of individuals to take risks and start their own firms. This, together with the IT boom and the disposable income that acts as savings in the initial stages of a start-up, has added to a lot of IT professionals choosing to become entrepreneurs,” she says.

Started off with 15 restaurants in July 2006, hungrybangalore today has tie-ups with 150 eating joints across town and the website gets around 1,500-2,000 hits everyday. The website also offers several other interesting features such as recipe videos, dabba services, diet tips and special offers. And if you still have second thoughts about ordering online, a scroll down the testimonial section will definitely change your mind.Thinking back about that venture capitalist’s advice amuses Priyanka. “At this stage, after a year, when we have been growing steadily and when there are so many young entrepreneurs around running successful businesses, it seems funny if we would have really given even a second thought to what he said.”

So the next time you want to entertain a dozen friends or want to reserve a place for business lunch, or just want to be sure that the restaurant doesn’t mix up your order, you know where to go. www.hungrybangalore.com - any restaurant, any time!

IIT Kharagpur alum develops travel site for Indian masses -- provides ability to search both flights and trains

I personally checked the site (http://www.90di.com/travel/), and it was awesome! Planning my travel to places with no direct airplane connectivity was horrible. But now, 90di allows users to plan either train journey, or an airplane journey, or a combination of both. Moreover, they direct you to the website of the original carrier for final booking, much like kayak.com in US.

Here's the background of Mr. Khusnood Naqvi:
Co-founder/ Programmer/ Director

Khushnood is a computer programmer and aspires to develop useful Internet applications in his, this new, avatar of an Entrepreneur. In the past he has developed and architected lots of applications and products in various areas. Some of these are in the area of: BPM/Workflow Engine; Telecom monitoring tools and applications; Insurance domain applications; PKI based security products; Credit card processing systems; and also contributed to the design of some Internet applications in the Web 1.0 days! His prior work experience has been with Infosys, which exposed him to all the diverse domains (mentioned above) and also various generations of technologies. Over the last 2 years of his stay there, he had been playing the role of a Principal Architect. Khushnood holds a Bachelors of Technology degree in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from IIT Kharagpur.



Here's a past article on the site

Bangalore: The explosion in the private airline business and the emergence of many budget carriers has opened India’s skies to thousands of its citizens.

But there are lakhs for whom this is still unaffordable — or who can think of an air trip only when combined with a journey by a cheaper mode. So far they have been denied the advantages of an Internet -based service.

Now three engineers in Bangalore, have come together to close this gap: Khushnood Naqvi, Kiran M.S., and Abhinit Kumar, all formerly employed at Infosys, recently launched a company, Ninety Degree Internet Software. Their flagship offering is an India-specific travel search engine — www.90di.com — which aggregates information from Indian Railways as well as all airlines in India. Most usefully , it allows travellers to create an itinerary based exclusively on train or air — or a combination of the two. The data base covers over 4000 Indian places — and the strength of the search facility lies in its ability to suggest all possible ways to get from here to there. Users can view various option, even call up a map to trace the rout. They can then ‘mix and match’ rail and air links and work out a combination that fits their purse.

In many respects the rail search facility is an improvement over anything offered by the Railways themselves and a few trials searches by this correspondent threw up many alternatives that would have been difficult to track down by reading the time tables. The site is also very useful if air services connect only part of the proposed trip: For example it will suggest the fastest connection from Delhi to Kottayam: by air to Kochi and then the best rail connection from there.

Mr. Naqvi, Ninety Degree’s Director, told The Hindu that the web resource does not do the booking — it lets the user finalise the itinerary and then provides links to the online booking facilities of the individual airlines. For train bookings the link leads to the IRCTC page which is India’s busiest e-commerce site. 90DI is a starkly simple-looking but feature-rich resource that will ease the hassles of travel planning for many of us.

A Talent Contest We're Losing -- By Craig Barrett

Here's a piece from the Washington Post

Sunday, December 23, 2007

The European Union took a step recently that the U.S. Congress can't seem to muster the courage to take. By proposing a simple change in immigration policy, E.U. politicians served notice that they are serious about competing with the United States and Asia to attract the world's top talent to live, work and innovate in Europe. With Congress gridlocked on immigration, it's clear that the next Silicon Valley will not be in the United States.

European politicians face many of the same political pressures surrounding immigration as their U.S. counterparts, and they, too, are not immune to those pressures. Nationalist and anti-immigrant factions in several Western European countries have made political gains in recent elections and are widely viewed as mainstream. Despite the hot-button nature of immigration issues, though, E.U. politicians advanced the "Blue Card" proposal in late October.

The plan is designed to attract highly educated workers by creating a temporary but renewable two-year visa. A streamlined application process would allow qualified prospective workers to navigate the system and start working in high-need jobs within one to three months.

This contrasts starkly with the byzantine system in place in the United States, which increasingly threatens America's long-term competitiveness.

The United States relies primarily on two programs to augment its workforce with highly educated, highly skilled foreign professionals. The H-1B visa is a three-year temporary visa that can be renewed once. The employment-based (EB) green card is the program for permanent residency. Both programs serve the needs of U.S. employers seeking to fill job vacancies in highly skilled professions. Extreme shortages of visas in both these programs are well documented.

H-1B visas, which are capped at 85,000 per year, are now gone in one day, with the "winners" determined by lottery.

The EB green card program has an annual allotment of 140,000 visas; these are allocated equally across all countries around the world, regardless of population. The inflexible country quotas mean that professionals from countries such as China and India are almost always at a disadvantage, finding themselves stuck in a system -- often for five to 10 years -- in which they cannot seek promotions and raises. Spouses and children count against the quota, which has not been raised since 1990. And even though they count against the quota of foreign workers allowed to come here, spouses are inexplicably forbidden to work, no matter their level of education and skill.

The U.S. system forces thousands of valuable foreign-born professionals -- including badly needed researchers, scientists, teachers and engineers -- into legal and professional limbo for years. Not surprisingly, many are considering opportunities in competitor nations -- even those who have lived in the United States for years and have graduated from American universities.

To be competitive in the global economy, U.S. companies depend on specialized talent coming out of U.S. graduate schools. These scientists and engineers are often foreign-born, as more than half of U.S. engineering master's students and PhD recipients are international students. Yet America shuts the door on many of these highly educated graduates, forcing them to look abroad for opportunities -- and our competitors are capitalizing on our failed policies.

E.U. leaders recognize that the top minds coming out of universities in the United States and other countries can help to reinvigorate European industry and enable it to create the next wave of businesses that drive innovation and economic growth.

While its Blue Card proposal still requires approval by member countries, Europe has sent a message. It intends to aggressively pursue the professional talent necessary to compete on the global stage. The United States, on the other hand, seems intent on driving away the very same talent the European Union is rolling out the red carpet to welcome.

The writer is chairman of Intel Corp., which employs about 2,000 employees with H-1B visas among its 86,000 workers worldwide.

Canaan stepping up investments in India - Mint

Menlo Park, California-based venture capital (VC) firm Canaan Partners hopes to invest at least 25% of its $650 million (Rs2,561 crore) eighth fund in India and Israel.

The firm, which has just closed the fund, will accelerate investment activities in India next year.

“We want to develop markets (outside the US) where we can exploit our expertise and get the biggest returns,” says John V. Balen, general partner, Canaan Partners. The VC firm, which has offices outside the US in India and Israel, had invested 10% of its previous fund of $450 million in these markets. Canaan Partners manages nearly $2.4 billion.

The larger fund size combined with an increased focus on investments outside the US, will lead to more investments in India, Balen added.

The firm does not have a dedicated India corpus, and has no plans of raising one in the near future either. Instead, Canaan prefers to invest out of its global corpus for all markets. To manage an increasing number of deals, Canaan will appoint another venture partner to its India investment team in January.

Alok Mittal, Canaan’s executive director who sold his jobs portal, Jobsahead.com, to
Monster.com in 2004, is tasked with handling all investments in India.
Canaan set up its India office in Gurgaon two years ago, a few months after it opened its Israel office in December 2005. Since then, the VC firm has invested in four companies in India and two in Israel.

Its India investments are in Consim Info Pvt. Ltd, which owns matrimonial site Bharatmatrimony.com, remote desktop support company iYogi Technical Services Pvt. Ltd, jobs referral portal TechTribe Networks Inc. and digital media company Cellcast Asia Holdings.

Canaan’s new fund, which would be invested over the next three years, will continue to focus on core sectors, such as consumer Internet and wireless technologies, enterprise and managed services, and health care.

About one-third of its deals will be in health care firms. Canaan will also look at clean technology deals globally. In India, however, health care and clean technology will not be key areas of focus. The firm has fully committed its seventh fund across 37 deals in the three markets. Unlike many of its Silicon Valley-based peers, Canaan does not have a presence in China. Instead, it plans to strengthen its investments in existing markets before exploring others. Canaan is also looking to tap the emerging “Indo-Israel corridor”. “We are beginning to exchange between the (two markets),” says Deepak Kamra, general partner, Canaan Partners. “Israel has expertise in wireless and software security technologies, which is applicable to India.”

I-Cube Report: Indian Young User Base Spending Time Online Mostly For Information And Entertainment

The IAMAI-IMRB I-Cube report posits that, of an active user base of 32 million users in 30 cities in India, around 33 percent are Young Men, and 21 percent are College Students. In all, around 39 percent belong to the SEC A category, and 33 percent to the SEC B category. All in all, the percentage of users from SEC C towns has been gradually growing...but more than the numbers, I found the qualitative data more interesting: what do people use the Internet for? In order: E-mail, Information, Entertainment, Chat and E-commerce.

Intel India : New Business Initiative

Intel India plans new businesses surrounding new technologies, markets & models

BANGALORE: Bringing a successful global practise to its Indian operations, chip major Intel is planning to spawn entrepreneurial ventures within its India technology centre. The core idea is to create an environment of innovation and business-building apart from pure technology. The added upside is that such an initiative has the power to retain some of its top performers from logging out of the company to jump-start ventures.

Intel’s internal business incubator, New Business Initiative (NBI), is currently executing comprehensive pilots in low-cost technology platforms and commercial launches are expected in the middle of 2008 in India. For time, NBI has been extended out of US in 2006 to India.

NBI is conceptualised around building new businesses surrounding new technologies, markets and models. Globally, the group has been incubating new businesses for 10 years with achievements such as WiMax.
Intel Capital, part of the Intel group, invests and supports several startups and ideas outside of the company. So, the internal business incubator backs those ideas that are not in the same space as those supported by the VC arm of the chip maker.

Talking to ET, Intel India President Praveen Vishakantaiah said, “We have got very good responses to the initiative internally.” Successful businesses either stay internal and complement Intel’s offerings or could be spun out as new entities. Currently, NBI is incubating two businesses in India in retail technologies and low-cost rural networks.

Engineer-entrepreneurs in Intel are working on a low-cost technology platform for kiranas and pharmacies by building point-of-sale and marketing devices like digital signage, coupons, and loyalty programs. These devices could be loaded with value-added services like billpay, mobile recharge, tickets, courier on the same platform. It is expected that service providers and consumers would be attracted to online service delivery model with offline cash payments. NBI is partnering with FMCG companies, service providers and Intel’s channel partners to support retailers.

At the same time, Intel is also looking at tune these ideas from the employees to demands of the marketplace. Mr Vishakantaiah said it has the “blue buddies” programme where it encourages its engineers to go and interact with the potential customers to understand what technology they would really require.

The other pilot is on building a rural network with low-cost, long-range WiFi technology developed in Intel’s Berkeley Laboratory. This network aims to bridge the link between villages and nearest wired network, often in district headquarters. NBI is partnering with many financial institutions and communication companies for this venture.

News Roundup: Nov 21

How to Invest in India

Coverage Of The Kindle (Book Reader, just like what iPod is for music) Launch

The Kindle Book Reader: What was Amazon Thinking?

Dubai-based Baer Capital Plans $500M-Infra And Real Estate Fund

Media in India: Is it Prime Time?

Govt to auction spectrum for 3G, Wi-Max services - Hindu

Updates:

BSNL Plans To Roll Out WiMax Services…But Will They Follow Through?

Telecom Roundup: RCom-VAS; Telecom Licences, Tariffs; CDMA Subs; 3G vs 4G


Link to the opriginal post in The HIndu BusinessLine

Also at ContentSutra:India To Auction 3G Spectrum; Introduces Phased Number Portability



Move opens doors for Deutsche Telecom, AT&T and new Indian players



New Delhi, November 12 In yet another blow to the existing GSM operators, the Communication Ministry has decided to auction spectrum for third generation (3G) mobile services and wireless broadband services through technologies such as Wi-Max.

The auction will be open to new companies wanting to foray into the telecom sector as well as established foreign telecom players. The existing operators had wanted the auction for 3G services to be limited to the licence holders.

The Ministry’s decision to open up the bidding to all players is also a move away from the telecom regulator’s recommendations that it be restricted to existing operators. The move gives a chance to the likes of Deutsche Telecom, AT&T and new Indian players such as Unitech and Hindujas, which may not get spectrum in the 2G band given the huge rush, to enter the high growth telecoms market. This means that existing GSM operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, after being asked to rope in more subscribers for being eligible for more spectrum for 2G services, will now have to fight it out for a piece of 3G spectrum.

As per the guidelines worked out by the Communication Ministry, 30 Mhz of spectrum in 2.1 Ghz band for 3G services is available which can accommodate between 3 and 6 players depending on whether the Government allocates 10 Mhz or 5 Mhz per operator. A decision on this and other modalities such as the date for the auction will be taken shortly by the DoT.

CDMA operators


For CDMA operators such as Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications, the Government has identified the 800 Mhz band in which 1.25 Mhz will be given to each operator. There will be no auction for the CDMA operators wanting to offer 3G services but they will have to pay an amount that is proportionate to the highest bidder in the auction for GSM players.

This is good news for CDMA players as they are currently using the 800 Mhz band for offering 2G services and, therefore, can start offering low-cost 3G services using the same equipment with minor investments. However, the DoT has not allowed the use of 1900 Mhz band and 450 Mhz band for CDMA players for now, which means that they will have only 1.25 MHz in all to offer 3G services.

In another major decision, the Government has decided to auction spectrum for Wi-Max services in the 2.5 Ghz band. Three operators would be given 10 Mhz each based on an ascending e-auction. The base price would be 25 per cent of the amount quoted by the highest bidder for 3G spectrum.

Besides the initial one time spectrum charge, an additional spectrum charge of 0.5 per cent of the operator’s annual revenues will be levied on both 3G and Wi-Max operators. Mergers will not be allowed during the first 5 years to prevent reselling or trading of spectrum. Both 3G and Wi-Max technologies will enable consumers to access high- speed data and entertainment services such as Interent Protocol TV and Video on Demand on mobile handsets. These technologies also allow the operators to offer better quality of service.


Mobile number portability in phases

Mobile Number Portability, which allows subscribers to change their operator without having to change the phone number, is finally here. The Minister of Communication, Mr A. Raja, has decided to introduce this system in phases, starting with the four metros.

This facility is likely to be available to the mobile subscribers by the fourth quarter of 2008. All the investments required to launch number portability will be made by the mobile operators.

Though the telecom regulator had recommended introduction of this system more than a year ago, the Government was facing resistance from the operators who were concerned about losing subscribers to rivals.

Al Gore's next act: Planet-saving VC

Al Gore's next act: Planet-saving VC
The recovering politician is teaming with a legendary venture capitalist and bigtime moneyman to make over the $6 trillion global energy business. A Fortune exclusive>

Also Kleiner Perkins To Zero In On Solar, Distributed Generation Space In India

Matrix Partners Trebles Fund Size To $450 Million - VC Circle

Matrix Partners India, the Mumbai-based venture capital fund, has boosted the size of their first fund to $450 million from the current $150 million. The fund, co–founded last year by former Baazee founder Avnish Bajaj (right) and former WestBridge Capital Partners partner Rishi Navani (left), will however retain its consumer services focus. It will only increase the ticket size to $10-30 million from the current upto $10 million, which means the stage of the companies they will invest will also include growth capital stage companies.

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