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Bharti pulls the plug on Mantra Online

K Giriprakash

On the back of mounting losses, the Bharti Group has decided to put a freeze on its ISP business, Mantra Online, and will no longer expand its customer base.

"We have pulled the plug on Mantra Online," Bharti Group chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal told Business Standard. He said there would no longer be any retail sale although the existing subscriber base of around 150,000 would continue to be serviced.

Mittal said the ISP business had posted losses of around Rs 100-120 million. "It is the only business where you buy retail but sell wholesale," Mittal said. He added that there were no plans to sell the business.

Mittal said Mantra Online had posted losses and that it was no longer a viable business for the group. "At that point, it made sense to have an ISP business," Mittal said.

Last month, Bharti launched its satellite-based broadband service provider, Sky Mantra, through which it will provide broadband, Internet and data services.

Last November, the BPL Innovision Group, exited its ISP business and sold its subscriber base to the Singapore-based NOW.com because the group wanted to focus on its cellular business.

Earlier, Mittal said Bharti had made a formal complaint to TRAI to pressurise Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd to provide interconnectivity to its network.

"We have sunk in enough money but we are yet to get interconnectivity, which is making us lose heavily," Mittal said.

Announcing the launch of the fixed-line telephone service, Touchtel, in Karnataka, Rajan Bharti Mittal, joint managing director of Bharti Group, said the state had the largest fibre network among the five states in which the group had launched services.

He said the group, through Bharti Televentures, had invested around Rs 2 billion in Karnataka for laying the fibre optic network and other infrastructure facilities.

Mittal said the telephone services in Karnataka were launched within five months from the grant of licence for the region in October 2001.

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