Net4India: The Indian Internet survivor

While many of its competitors have fallen by the information highway, Net4India is actually picking up speed. Gaurav Patra explains what drives the company, which hosts 75,000 websites

Net4India’s hosting services are accompanied by sophisticated hardware and software, and qualified technical personnel who ensure prompt and excellent customer service, says Jasjit Sawhney

Launched in September 1999, Net4India is a complete Internet infrastructure and services company. This category-A ISP is based in Delhi, and has branch offices at Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Hydera bad, Kolkata, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad, with 260 employees across the country. Net4India provides solutions for enterprise access, Web presence and Internet telephony, and has state-of-the-art Internet infrastructure in seven cities. Internet data centres have been put up in Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Banga lore, Hyderabad and Pune. Listed with the Delhi Stock Exchange, Net4India also has an application development centre at the corporate office in Delhi.

Diversification

The company first started its India operations with dial-up services, and then decided to diversify. "There is no concept of revenue sharing with telcos in India. A lot of ISPs were also getting into this business. Besides, India is a very price-sensitive market. That is why we decided to enter other segments," explains Iqbal Gandham, the company’s executive vice-president, adding, "With the coming of MP3, PDF files and other heavy applications, the dial-up experience is considered to be very limited." Today the company helps its customers maximise their return on investment by offering a range of networking and end-to-end Web solutions.

"In India customers want 24-hour access to the Internet. That is why we decided to start our data centre business. We are very focused in terms of the segments we are targeting," says Net4India CEO Jasjit Sawhney. Together, these data centres have around 2,500 sq ft of space. Gandham points out that by spreading these data centres across the country they acquire the advantage of redundancy. "We are the only ISP in India having redundant data centres. This is where our value comes in. We are now talking about managed services and outsourcing services, which is a natural progression from our existing business area," says Gandham.

Enterprise access solutions: Net4India offers Internet access through dial-up, ISDN and leased lines in six major cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. It can also provide access through a radio link. Net4India has two international gateways (Delhi and Chennai) that help provide quality Internet bandwidth to its customers in India.

Web presence solutions: The company offers three services in this segment: domain name registration, Web hosting and server co-location. It is currently the largest domain name registration and hosting company in India, besides being one of the top three in providing dedicated server co-location facilities across the country.

Net4India began domain name registration in March 2000, and has since built up a base of thousands of satisfied registrants. It has tie-ups with a number of agencies, and gets very attractive rates due to bulk buying of domains from them.

The company has state-of-the-art connectivity and hardware at its server farms. It is also tying up with agencies to provide a secure payment process for clients hosting transaction sites. "Our hosting services are accompanied by sophisticated hardware and software, and qualified technical personnel who ensure prompt and excellent customer service," informs Sawhney. Net4India already has quite a few partners for hosting in the Middle East and South East Asia. "Today we have customers in almost every country. This is because, at one point of time, we were one of the cheapest domain companies around," explains Sawhney (the company was initially offering this service for only Rs 399; it subsequently increased prices).

Net4India also provides dedicated server co-location facilities across the country, and offers reliable infrastructural support. The company’s data centres have several notable features, which include a technical environment engineered for e-business, a climate-controlled environment, microprocessor-controlled redundant air-conditioning, redundant UPS network monitoring systems, auto-start dual DG set, certified AMP cabling with Gigabit backbone, switched 100 Mbps fast Ethernet, secure access control, a 24-hour power back-up, optical fibre network, faster downloads, and reliable and continuous customer support from trained professionals.

Website design

Net4India has five project offices at Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune, with the central project office in Delhi. The company offers an array of Web presence solutions for both small businesses and large enterprises.

Internet telephony

In April 2002, Net4India launched its Internet telephony service under the brand name phonewala.com. The company is a licensed Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP), and the first to bring this technology to the retail market in India. So far it has sold over 300,000 retail cards, and provides Internet telephony services to over 500 corporates and medium-sized businesses. Net4India also intends to set up 300 Internet telephony PCOs across the country.

Apart from this, the company is also into the networking and communications business. It offers a range of networking, network integration (LAN and WAN) and communication services to SMEs. These services include virtual private networks, intranets and extranets. More over, consulting services on network design, network security and network maintenance are also provided.

Net4India also offers corporate communication solutions like mailing, fax over IP and e-mail to fax. The company is planning to foray into the Voice-over-IP business to provide its SME customers significant savings on their current national and international long-distance telephone charges. Net4India’s existing team already has experience in deploying such solutions, and will swing into action once the government approves regulations for the same.

The company has recently started international traveller card services. Under this, a customer can use a calling card in 15 countries, including some in North America and Europe.

The company has customers both in the SME and the corporate sector. Around 75,000 websites are hosted on its network; the figure includes those sites that have hosted directly with Net4India, and those that have hosted through Net4India’s partners. Mail is a big application that people are hosting with Net4India. The entire e-mail facility of ONGC and Indian Oil runs via the ISP’s engine and network. Some other clients are Accel Group, Andhra Pradesh Technology Development and Promotion Centre, Bank Ware, Y Patil Educational Trust, Epson service centre, Global Energy Consulting Engineers, India Automotive, India Woman Power (Crompton Greaves), Kumudam Group, Landmark, NAC Jewellers, Rolls Royce, Saatchi & Saatchi, Time Business School, Voith Gmbh and Yashoda Hospitals.

In the last fiscal, the company clocked revenues of Rs 22 crore, and this year it anticipates around Rs 30 crore, of which Sawhney expects Rs 8 crore to come from the Internet telephony business. "We are one of the very few profitable service providers in the business. We were profitable last year, and in this fiscal our profits have grown along with our revenues," informs Sawhney, who nevertheless feels that revenues could have grown much more. But he shrugs, "I do not see any challenge in just gaining top line growth by adding customers and getting more revenues. In the last couple of years ISPs have dropped like flies. The market is far less competitive than it was. People are very conscious about what prices they sell at, so it is not just a matter of adding customers. The challenge is not to grow at the pace we did. Maintaining profitability and keeping a tight rein on costs, staff size and the range of operations are definitely greater challenges which we are meeting quite successfully."

The arrival of private basic service operators like Bharti and Reliance has also helped the company minimise its infrastructure costs. "Our costs have gone down because of them, and this has helped in the reduction of bandwidth cost," says Sawhney. However, like any other ISP, revenue sharing is a major concern for Net4India. "As far as policy issues are concerned, revenue sharing on the dial-up is a core issue. If there is a certain amount of revenue sharing, even dial-up can be a profitable business," he opines.

Strengths

Sawhney feels that since all technical expertise is in-house, Net4India is at a huge advantage.

A state-of-the-art network is an essential ingredient for the success of any ISP, and Net4India is no exception. "Because of the nature of the business we are in, we need to have a secure and redundant network. We have multiple links between each data centre, which allows us a very flexible routine. In addition, we have terrestrial and satellite connectivity," informs Gandham. Over the years, technology has been changing and so has customer demand. Those vendors or service providers who have managed to change will succeed. This is what Net4India has done till date, and will continue to do. "Today, people are hosting different applications, e-commerce engines, and are keeping back-ups of their entire data. We go and see what the customer wants, and analyse his requirements, instead of saying this is what he should have," states Gandham.

Tomorrow’s world

Sawhney expects the lack of good quality dial-up and demand for better connectivity to drive the market. Keeping this in mind, Net4India is planning to introduce a range of services targeting both corporates and home users. The ISP is also in the process of developing different applications for both these segments. One of the applications is for broadband billing, and Sawhney is quite excited about it.