The pre-paid tariffs for Mantra Online offer users the choice of a wide range of denominations ranging from a minimum of 25 hours of usage, which can then be racked up in multiples, to 500 hours. The tariff for 25 hours has been fixed at Rs 990, while the 500 hours access comes for Rs 8,990.In the monthly payment scheme users will pay a flat fee for a specific number of hours per month, with additional usage being charged at an hourly rate. Users will pay Rs 590 per 20 hours, Rs 890 per 40hours, with security deposits of Rs 1000 and Rs 2000 for the two slabs.

The Mantra Surf-by-nite, has been designed for convenient usage during off-peak hours, between 10 pm and 6 am with a 150 hours package costing Rs 2,390 and the 300 hours package, Rs 3,990.

The service is being offered at Bharti's retail outlets in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore for starters, and will be expanded to another 27 cities within a year. Bharti Enterprises chairman, Sunil B Mittal said that his company wouldinvest Rs 50 crore in the first phase to deploy the service.

The service will be operated via two gateways each in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. BBIL has leased one gateway from Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) and one from the Software Technology Park of India (STPI). Mittal told reporters that Bharti-BT had also put in an application for setting up a private international gateway.

In addition, in June 1999, the company will also be launching two new service brands. The first, Mantra Global, will be a global roamingfacility targetted at frequent travellers. The service will allow the user access to the Net from over 150 countries: regardless of location, the subscriber will be able to use the same account and password at local call rates.

The second, Mantra Maximail, will provide customers with additional e-mail accounts on top of the ones available with the connection. Mantra Online will also offer other services such as complete access to Encyclopaedia Britannica's intelligent search engine. It also plans to offer access to a special site designed exclusively for teenage subscribers.

Mittal said the company was also planning to hire leased lines from external agencies including Railways and the Power Grid Corporation (PGCIL) after domestic long-distance telephony was thrown open in January 2000.

BBIL chief executive officer N. Arjun said that the company had provided an optimum port density ratio (the number of subscribers to telephone lines) conforming to international standards and a backbone bandwidth of 2Mbps for facilitating faster access.

``In addition, Mantra Online will host value added services that range from Intranet and Extranet solutions and security services to messaging and E-mail solutions'', said Arjun. Users will be able to host individual web pages and corporate web sites, besides getting free E-mail accounts and space, fast log-in and round-the-clock customer care.

Arjun added that Mantra Online hoped to have 70,000 subscribers across three cities, in the first year of operations. The portal site will provide local, relevant real-time information on news and current affairs, the latest movies, celebrity interviews and other content.

Bharti BT Internet is a new joint-venture company, 51 per cent owned by Bharti Enterprises and 49 per cent by the public-listed British Telecommunciations plc, one the largest telecom companies in the world with a turnover of US $29.2 billion and a pre-tax profit of $6.87 billion in 1998-99.